This ethnographic study explores the literacies of bilingual families living in the Rio Grande Valley on the U.S.-Mexico border. Murillo argues that immigrant families living on the border play an important role in their children's literacy development, but that their voices are seldom heard in schools due to powerful and persistent deficit views…

Dutro discusses an analysis of the disconnect between the material realities of the lives of a group of third-grade children living in poverty and the middle-class assumptions of a district-mandated unit within a literacy curriculum. The analysis arose in the context of an ethnographic study of identity and classroom literacy practices; it was…

Describes the Nigerian (Yoruba) storytelling tradition and the techniques employed to perpetuate it in the home and in the school. (DD)

Describes a language arts project which used students' own first names as the project theme. (DD)

Defines language awareness, examines shifts in meaning which words undergo, and discusses how this topic can be applied in education. (DD)

Examines children's progression in the use of humor in language from taking folktales seriously, to using humor for shock, to using humor to alter social environments. (HTH)

Points out that if students are to learn to negotiate meaning, they must have opportunities to use a balanced combination of informational, expressive, and interactional language. Describes three teaching strategies which are important in nurturing a range of language in the drama classroom: questioning, reflecting, and teacher in role. (ARH)

Argues that the field of multicultural education, as it is currently conceived and practiced, is riven with theoretical inconsistencies and a seemingly terminal inability to translate its emancipatory intentions into actual practice. Describes the Richmond Road School in Auckland, New Zealand, which has implemented an informed, coherent, and…

A participant in a British teacher workshop that focused on student talk describes the progress of the group toward defining the types of language they wanted to focus on in the classroom and the group's publication of weekly progress reports. (HTH)

Laments the trend toward the use of management and administrative jargon as the language of school analysis. Endorses a new discourse and mode of analysis of the nature of schooling that would indict the shortcomings but also reveal new possibilities for organizing school experiences. (HTH)

Cautions that teaching manuals preclude a teacher's instinct for individualized teaching, and addresses the issue of what teachers need to know about language, culture, and learning for effective reading instruction. (HTH)

South American educator and author Freire discusses qualities important for the teacher, his vision of education and the growth of young children, and the role of language and reading in that vision. (HTH)

Presents conversations of a group of fifth graders collaborating on a social studies task to illustrate how childen use language to learn. Focuses on one student whose oral language was rapid and chaotic but who demonstrated extremely sophisticated and complex structuring of knowledge to understand a particular social studies concept. (HTH)

Presents research on the situational dimension of linguistic power in social context and the relevance of this research within culturally pluralistic educational contexts. Offers suggestions for class activities that can engage standard and nonstandard speakers of English as well as those who do not speak English. (SRT)