Curriculum guides can effectively guide practice if the guide writer pays attention to the context in which teachers work and to the language that teachers use in that context. Problems encountered by a curriculum project illustrate what happens in practice when guide writers fail to appreciate teachers' objectives. (RM)

To produce a curriculum guide that is practical calls for an awareness of the working context of the practitioner and an ability to translate that intuitive awareness into an explicit description which captures the essence of what teaching is. Health education project materials are used to illustrate the translating demands. (RM)

Factors which affect communication with teachers via curriculum guides include how authors and readers conceptualize educational practice and teaching and audience characteristics. Although each of the predominant forms of discourse (persuasive, descriptive, theoretical) used to communicate practice prescriptions for teachers is flawed, the three…

A study examined curriculum decision-making in the classrooms of accomplished teachers of English in grades 9 through 12, focusing on aspects of structure, content, and ways of knowing and doing that combined to create a sense of a "curriculum" rather than a series of disconnected lessons. Four classrooms were studied each semester for…