Six pre-service teachers participated in a component of narrative inquiry that took place the week before their teacher education program began. The component offered the teachers a variety of multimodal activities, such as body biographies, teaching museums, and paper tearing representations, all making use of repurposed materials, to critically…

This teaching tip highlights three writing minilessons that help students construct vivid sensory detail (textual detail related to the five senses) in their fiction and creative nonfiction writing. Learning to show, not tell, is a difficult task for novice writers. The author explores reasons why this is the case and provides directions for the…

Throughout this article, we explore how multiple arts-based learning strategies (ABLS) helped subvert traditional literacy methods. We ask two large questions: (1) How, as critically conscious educators, might we break down inherent institutionalized oppressive structures and have an education of liberation and freedom? (2) What can we say about…

This dissertation discusses how engaging in arts-based identity exploration activities can help traditional-age undergraduates (ages 18-24) develop increased self-awareness and cultural sensitivity. The dissertation first explores the participatory inquiry paradigm and the roles of artistic/creative expression in holistic knowledge creation and…

This article arises from a four week study of a class of 14-15 year old students. The study explored students' perception of themselves as writers and the effects of a variety of teaching and learning strategies on their creative writing responses. The aim of the project was to enhance the students' creative writing, whilst ascertaining whether…

Recent education policy designed to promote arts education tends to focus on how such curriculum supports "skills for innovation" required for success in the global economy. Emphasis on the transfer of arts-based learning to professional innovation and achievement, a dynamic that is difficult to determine, can undermine the value of…

This article describes an authentic, social, inclusive writing activity for young children (preschool to second grade) with and without disabilities engaged in what the second and third authors called "Big Paper." In addition to detailing the activity, recommendations for maximizing the participation of all students and monitoring…

This article introduces a pedagogical intervention that includes a set of creative activities designed to improve the oral and written production of students in the English classroom, especially those who have shown a lack of interest or attention. It was observed that participants initially seemed careless about studying the language. Eventually…

The texts and classroom activities in this paper are a sample of those used within a unit on "The Battle for Survival". The unit brings classic Australian literary texts together with reportage on contemporary news events, and demonstrates an integrated approaches to the Literacy, Language and Literature strands of the AC:E. The unit…

Sixteen scholarly papers and twenty abstracts comprise the content of the eighteenth annual Brick & Click Libraries Conference, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the conference, portray the contemporary and future face of librarianship.…

As public relations professions advance toward new media platforms, one traditional tool--the backgrounder/position paper (more technically termed white paper) remains a compelling vehicle to impart enduring professional competencies. Moreover, the skills requisite to produce a white paper can be deployed in a variety of new and traditional media…

It is important to find the means by which struggling writers can find success in the English Language Arts. For students struggling with reading and writing, the visual arts may be a way of accessing and expressing their ideas and ultimately opening up a world of creative possibilities. This article explores drawing and painting as a pre-writing…

This article describes the use of "4MALITY", a web-based mathematics tutoring system, with 125 Massachusetts fourth graders and their teachers in three rural school districts during the 2007-2008 school year. At the outset, "4MALITY" was envisioned as a stand-alone web based system providing tutorial support to individual…

Rooted in graffiti culture and its attitude toward the world, street art is regarded as a postgraffiti movement. Street art encompasses a wide array of media and techniques, such as traditional spray-painted tags, stickers, stencils, posters, photocopies, murals, paper cutouts, mosaics, street installations, performances, and video projections…

Magazine Mania is a series of seven reproducible self-motivating activities involving magazines such as "National Geographic" and "Ranger Rick." While enjoying the activities pupils will be increasing their self awareness, appreciation of foreign cultures, divergent thinking skills, skimming, research skills, creative writing skills, vocabulary,…