Discusses (1) how instructional objectives can become a constraint on students' learning, (2) how teachers need to help students overcome their fears about learning, and (3) the danger of fragmenting process approaches to learning into ritualized parts. (SRT)

Critiques what learning appears to mean in the typical American school setting and suggests a more appropriate construct of learning. Explains how this construct will enable a clearer vision of how writing fits as a means of enhancing learning. (HTH)

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

Discusses learning how to compose a film as one way children can learn the valuable lesson of how to give form to ideas and shape to thought. Presents the stages of composing a film and a sequence of filmmaking activities for introduction at progressive grade levels. (HTH)

Contributes to the emerging picture of children's development of understanding in geometry and the kinds of teaching that can support it. Describes how teachers can use episode writing to capture student thinking and make instructional decisions. (ASK)

Reports classroom observations and dialogues with children that show children's understandings and use of punctuation; reports data showing that children in a class in which punctuation was taught in the context of writing learned more about punctuation than children in a class in which it was taught in isolation. (ET)

Recent research on children learning to write, coming from a mix of disciplines (English education, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and rhetoric), is described in this volume. The introduction, by Marcia Farr, emphasizes how the research contributes to understanding (1) of research methodology and theoretical frameworks, and (2) of…

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

A case study of a young boy's learning to read and write from the beginnings of literacy at age 5 up to age 11, after reading and writing have converged, is the focus of this book. The first part of the book, a description of his learning to write, discusses invented spelling, research about other young spellers and writers, the shift toward…

Recent brain research demonstrates that the left hemisphere of the brain processes information in a linear, organized way. The right hemisphere processes the same information as a whole, with a focus on nonverbal, spatial components. Current educational practice is inordinately skewed to develop only the left hemisphere of the brain. Data from…

Relationships between language, literacy, and school learning are investigated in a case study of a first grader. Examination of his journal-writing during a school year focuses on a two-month period in which he wrote almost exclusively about superheroes. An individual approach to sociolinguistic research on childhood learning is advocated. (48…

A collection of articles showing the role played by the Australian Primary English Teaching Association in contributing to the quality of educational thought, this publication is intended to stimulate and challenge discussion on a wide range of educational ideas and issues. The first part deals with half-truths about learning, learning in school,…

Based on a seminal classroom research project directed by Dr. Donald Graves, as well as on the experiences of numerous children, teachers, parents, and researchers around the world, this book shows what can happen when teachers and parents realize that every child can write. Although the book is the result of a collaboration, the two authors have…

Focusing on talk as the vehicle through which the reading and writing processes can become more interactive and can more closely approach the processes of learning, the lessons presented in this booklet provide examples of how teachers can construct learning strategies to help children "talk their way into meaning" against a framework of…

A synthesis of current research, theory, and professional opinion on how children learn to write, this report begins with a brief introduction followed by a discussion of writing readiness that suggests children's eagerness to learn to write. The third chapter examines children's use of writing to extend the functions of speech, drawing, and play,…