Developing knowledge and understandings related to children's literature among preservice elementary teachers is a vital component of teacher preparation that should be addressed in a required course. The purpose of the present study was to identify essential learning outcomes addressed in children's literature courses that were required…

Discusses a Master Class at the 1996 meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English on the topic of alternative methods of teaching children's literature. Discusses presentations by Rudine Sims Bishop, Jon Stott, and Kathy Short. (RS)

Pictograms--assemblages of geometrical shapes that represent parts of the body--simply and vividly show how the body moves. They can be used to help elementary students draw larger figures and have confidence in drawing people. The pictograms also encourage children to look at shapes and details that artists use. (RM)

An enrichment program in literature for gifted sixth graders is discussed. It is explained that the course lasts for one year and meets for one hour three days a week. The nature and rationale of the course topics (biography, realistic fiction, poetry, and tragedy) are explored. (PHR)

Offers an organizational framework, built upon a concept-based curriculum and a dialectical model of history, for the study of multiple perspectives in the combined fields of history and literature. Describes a college course using such a framework which investigated children's picture books concerning war. (HB)

Intended for use by reading teachers, this document presents classroom activities for using drama as an aid to reading comprehension. Following a brief introduction discussing the rationale for drama in the reading classroom, the paper details various phases in comprehension, matching each level with suggested books and appropriate dramatic…

Describes an elementary art program that teaches children to use clay, a course in which middle-grade students made pottery using old plaster greenware molds, and an art class in which middle-grade students made Indian jewelry. (RM)

Describes a Scottish elementary grade classroom where a literature-based, integrated approach to instruction (1) improved pupil's schema for the world around them and their understanding of the organization of text; (2) developed their ability to solve problems and work cooperatively; and (3) improved their self-concept as they became more…

The dichotomy a teacher educator experienced as a child between reading library books and "store-bought" books at home and reading the textbooks in school turned out to fuel major debates in the teaching of reading. She always believed that she had learned to read with books--she simply endured the school readers to get through school.…

Describes a course for undergraduate elementary education majors on children's literature of emerging nations, aiming to make students (1) aware of their unquestioned cultural assumptions; (2) aware of the value of cultures different from, and opposed to, their own; and (3) think critically about culture, basing their values on understanding…

Describes a "preliminary" course for English as a foreign language in Grades 5-6, including games and situational conversations. An outline is given, ordered on the basis of increasing difficulty. Hints are given for extending the repertoire of games. Finally, the value of written texts is discussed. (IFA/WGA)

The imminent closing of their school led one school's teachers to design the curriculum for the last six months around the theme of shelter. Activities utilized included thinking and verbalizing about the idea of shelter, building and writing about shelters, building cameras and taking photographs, and going on field trips. (IS)

Students learned to produce pottery using the coiling and surface decoration techniques of the Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest. In doing so they learned about working within the aesthetic confines of an unfamiliar culture. The history of Southwestern pottery is also covered briefly. (IS)

A French language program used in a Montessori school with children in preschool through junior high grades is described. The program provides language instruction in the classroom by a French specialist as well as separate French classes, a compromise between immersion and the Montessori methodology. The children are able to work independently…

In this report, process objectives, project materials, time allotment, and suggested activities for the instruction of all-Spanish and English dominant, Spanish dominant, English dominant-Spanish speaking, English mono-lingual and English dominant children are described. The following curriculum areas are considered: dominant language arts,…