Describes the author's recent out-of-classroom experience which got him thinking about teaching, about school literacy experiences, and about the way that truly skillful teachers are probably the best listeners, who recognize their own skillfulness and are able to share their expertise with their students. (SR)

Shows, in one teacher's autobiographical account, that understanding connections between teachers' lives outside of school and themselves as teachers helps them to see how to link the worlds of home and school for their students. (SR)

Discusses a classroom where children from many cultures use talk to share and discover the "big" questions in their lives and where the teacher discovers what the critical issues for her and her students really are. (RS)

Offers reflections by a teacher educator who spent a year teaching a third-grade class. Discusses the realities of a teacher's internal decision-making process and day-to-day interactions with children in the classroom. Notes that uncertainty is what keeps the inquiry process going. (SR)

Argues that focusing vision and going beyond imitation is the path by which the teacher becomes a learner and, as a result, a better teacher. Illustrates the individual search for authority of two teachers through two personal stories. (SR)

Argues that explicit instruction is not a characteristic of teaching practices as much as an aspect of the negotiated space between teaching and learning. Describes how three teaching strategies that shift focus from teachers' explicit telling to learners' explicit thinking (demonstration, assisted performance, and reflective description) make…

Offers seven stories about one teacher's preschool and elementary school children to demonstrate that it is from their students that teachers learn to be better teachers. (SR)

Discusses eight books which illustrate different approaches teachers are using to continue learning from their colleagues, from their teaching and their students, and from writing. (SR)

Examines the roles and relationships involved as a first-grade teacher and her students built a classroom community that supported the children's acquisition of literacy. Shows how the teacher helped the children and how she got out of their way to allow them to take control of their own learning and curriculum. (SR)

Argues that inquiry is not merely using a "new" set of instructional practices, but rather involves a theoretical shift in viewing curriculum, students, learning, and teaching. (SR)

Discusses six ways in which writing workshop and specific practices like author's chair can actually make learning to write more difficult if they are implemented in inappropriate ways. Presents a case study. Advocates focusing more on what the child is trying to do and less on what the teacher is trying to teach. (SR)

Illustrates the concerns and problems that two teachers have tackled and are currently addressing as they change their teaching to an integrated language program. Considers issues and dilemmas that emerge when teachers begin to share power with their students. Covers some parallel power issues that arise in the collaboration between…

Describes a process for assessing children's reading that involves observations, interpretations, forming hypotheses, making curricular decisions, and going through the process again. Describes how this process, called "Hypothesis Test," has proved useful to a number of teachers with whom the author has worked. (SR)

Describes how a teacher shared her love of poetry once a week with a class of seventh-grade students who hated poetry, and how, in a few short months, students who had hated poetry for years became poetry lovers. (SR)

Examines a fourth-grade teacher's interactions with a child, showing that actually allowing students to use their point of view when discussing literature is a real challenge that requires most classroom teachers to rethink their roles as readers and listeners. (RS)