This article describes 10 recommendations for creativity, higher-order thinking, and meaningful learning activities that can be used to guide teachers in constructing an engaging AP course: (1) Be on the committee that decides how students will be selected for AP; (2) Maximize time and connections through blocks of time with an English colleague;…

In this article we describe current educational research underlying a comprehensive model for building a scientific classroom discourse community. We offer a professional development activity for a school-based professional learning community, providing specific science instructional strategies within this interactive teaching model. This design…

This newsletter of best practices in implementing the High Schools That Work (HSTW), Making Middle Grades Work (MMGW) and Technology Centers That Work (TCTW) school improvement models is based on presentations at the 27th Annual HSTW Staff Development Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the summer of 2013. The newsletter is divided up into…

For one instructor of eleventh and twelfth grade English, teaching the short story offers the best opportunity to teach fiction writing to students. It contains all the elements novels contain, but students can read many short stories in the same time they need to read a novel. Students can also write their own short stories. Above all, literature…

Presents an approach used in high school English classes to connect students with the world outside high school. Encourages students to take risks by selecting a project topic, choosing and inviting a guest speaker, preparing for the visit, reading and writing on related topics, and doing a follow-up project. (SR)

The author assigned students in his high school religion course to interview their parents and other Catholic adults about sex, love, and marriage. He discusses the benefits of this interview format in promoting adult/child communication about sexuality. (SJL)

Describes an activity in which students receive individual questions (i.e., What is a sparkler made of and what makes it sparkle?) to answers from their "Aunt Gladys." Students must research the everyday question, discover the answer, and then translate the answer into the common language of the masses. (PR)

Notes that teachers can make writing assignments more acceptable by using innovative techniques. Suggests that using letter writing for research projects is a good motivational technique. Asks students to assume roles of persons of a specific historical period and write from the first-person perspective. Includes sample letter. (NL)

A substantial amount of literature in education and psychology supports the notion that reading combined with writing enhances comprehension and recall. To investigate how various writing tasks affect thinking, a pilot study was conducted, which produced results consistent with the hypothesis that text engagement (student interaction with written…

This unit is one of several modules designed for instruction at the eleventh and twelfth grade levels in a course on family relationships and parenting education. Included within the unit is information concerning the structure of communities, the many community resources that are ready to assist individuals and groups, procedures for becoming…

These proceedings contain the papers of the International Conference e-Learning 2013, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society and is part of the Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (Prague, Czech Republic, July 23-26, 2013). The e-Learning 2013 conference aims to…