This book presents 15 essays that consider writing development from many different angles, creating a collage that focuses on how to help students develop into competent writers. The first section of the book consists of four chapters on how to support young writers. In the second section, the essays explore how a variety of issues influence…

This digest paper presents strategies and activities that can be used to encourage gifted students to develop their individual talents in the language arts. Suggestions for exploring poetic language especially free verse, include ideas for creating group poems and catalysts for creating individual poems. Suggestions for exploring the elements of…

The purpose of this study is to investigate how publishing students' writing in the community affects their attitudes toward writing. Participants were 19 sixth-grade language arts students from an urban upper elementary school. Results from student attitude surveys indicate that using publishing is an effective method of connecting students to…

These 10 fliers focus on strategies to improve students' writing. The fliers are: (1) Improving Writing (covers general points related to all types of writing); (2) Writing Narrative (covers the main points to writing narrative, helping children to build up a repertoire of different types of narrative); (3) Writing Poetry (covers the main points…

Based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" and other war literature, this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand that works of art about war can call up strong emotions in readers; and that the writing process can be applied to writing poems. The main activity of the lesson involves…

Based on Miguel de Cervantes' novel "Don Quixote," this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand that Quixote's misperceptions are understandable; writers often describe one object to sound as if it were something else; and metaphors help readers see with new eyes. The main activity of the lesson involves students…

When children hear, write, and recite poetry, they understand more deeply the qualities of verse--the importance of sound, compactness, internal integrity, imagination, and line. Students' working collaboratively on poetry helps provide a safe structure for their creativity. This lesson plan for a unit on collaborations in poetry writing intended…

Describes a stimulating one-day reading program in which 209 students divided into four groups according to their interests in a particular literary genre and spent an entire day reading a paperback in that category to each other. (RW)

A college class project to develop a videocassette presentation of African, Caribbean, and Afro-American French poetry is described from its inception through the processes of obtaining copyright and translation permissions, arranging scripts, presenting at various functions, and reception by Francophone and non-Francophone audiences. (MSE)

Annotates recent materials for younger, intermediate, and older readers. Includes picture books, fiction, nonfiction, paperbacks, poetry, and children's books of special interest to adults. Also annotates one film. (FL)

Analyzes the poetry of Nicomedes Santa Cruz, a Black Peruvian, as reflective of sociopolitical developments, culture, and religion in a country where Blacks have historically occupied a low social status. Interprets Santa Cruz's poems as expressions of a search for self-identity and for international solidarity through Christian brotherhood.…

Three activities used with first-year French students are described: (1) drawing pictures by following directions which demonstrates knowledge of subjects and prepositions, (2) reading a poem in French and rewriting it in French prose, and (3) learning numbers through role-plays involving money. (PMJ)

Presents an annotated guide to humorous materials in French, including cartoons, poems, brief texts, and comic books, which may be used to introduce humor in the French classroom. References to other articles on this subject appearing in this journal are also included. (AM)

This study investigated what effect divergent-thinking training focusing on a single task would have on the creative performance of 79 seventh graders on a closely related task. Students received training in poetry-relevant, divergent-thinking skills. The training was found to have a significant impact on the students' creativity in writing…

Most multicultural books promote one particular ethnic group and not a global view. Presents children's nonfiction, fiction, and poetry portraying people of different ethnic backgrounds interacting in positive ways or promoting the concept of a global village through universal similarities. Includes classroom activities that demonstrate global…