An Oregon elementary teacher encouraged a group of fourth grade students in a writing pullout program to share their writings in a portfolio she was assembling for an education class. The kids all volunteered their writing, learned to express themselves better, and asked to create their own portfolios. The experience fostered student ownership,…

This four-document collection describes the implementation processes of dramatically improved literacy programs in elementary schools which are leading the move to restructure literacy education in the Northwest (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington). The first document in the collection, "Strategies for Improving School-Wide…

Critical whole language practice, like any other pedagogy, is enacted within a particular time and place. We present several features of critical whole language practice (as distinguished from two other variants of critical education: critical literacy and critical pedagogy) and illustrate each with examples from one year in one elementary school…

An English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) educator of migrant students in a rural county in Oregon used a whole-language approach to language and reading instruction. Although reading instruction in Spanish was preferred, lack of Spanish-speaking personnel and limited ESL instructional time prohibited that approach. In whole-language ESL, the teacher…