"Welcome to Buckeye City" is an adolescent online community that was maintained by 25 Korean students who attended American schools. On the website, the students engaged in "relay writing"--a writing activity in which each person contributed a portion of an evolving story in a relayed manner. Relay writing offers teachers a new and valuable window…

This article describes a holistic, discourse-based method for assessing the critical thinking skills of undergraduate senior-level finance majors. Rejecting a psychometric assessment approach in which component features of critical thinking are disaggregated, this study is based on a holistic scoring of student memos. Students were asked to…

Developed by national reading experts for "reading partners" to use with children, ages birth to grade 6, this booklet presents activities that help very young children to get ready for reading and writing, and guide older children to expand their reading and writing interests and skills. The booklet has three sections, one for…

An intensive college English Literature course provided a special learning opportunity through its innovative reading and writing assignments. From the beginning, students learned by individually selecting, finding, and reading texts and writing descriptive reports intended for class sharing and interaction. The final project involved a formal…

Describes a teaching exercise in an undergraduate psychology course in which students read a book with unconventional perspectives on the field of study. Maintains that the activity develops critical reading and thinking skills by confronting students with controversial views. Identifies some of the books selected to fit the criteria of this…

Assessment provides feedback to teachers so that instruction can be modified. It also provides feedback to students during and after the course. Discusses approaches to assessment in geology courses that relate assessment to instruction. Three student assignments are described: (1) Personal Question Sheets; (2) a report on Personal/Social Issues…

A method is described for computerizing assignments in electrical engineering courses which removes certain objections to traditional non-computerized assignments. (Author/RAO)

A researcher investigating first-grade reading instruction found that students and teachers viewed the purpose of seatwork very differently. Suggestions for making seatwork more meaningful are offered. (MT)

Presents six impromptu speaking exercises suitable for developing a variety of speaking skills. (PD)

Fifteen writing instructors report their favorite ways of getting students to write. (RL)

Researchers have posited that when students work on assignments with many discrete tasks, that each completed discrete task may be a conditioned reinforcer. If the discrete task completion hypothesis is accurate, then relative task completion rates should influence choice behavior in the same manner as relative rates of reinforcement. Results of a…

Presents four poems of the "self" (poems that represent authors' perceptions of themselves) by secondary school students. Discusses how to assess such poems and students' development in writing poems like them. (SR)

This is the fourth in a series of articles on using children's literature to foster the principles of the Circle of Courage. In this issue, the author provides selections that foster generosity and altruism. (Author)

A science fiction problem was placed before the students, they had to plan a profitable trip for Galactic spaceship tour and for which group of five students was made to solve the problem, which would encourage cooperative efforts, and different people in the group could work on different aspects. An important part of this problem is that students…

Merging science and writing to enhance both subjects was the objective of a venture known as "Plant Notes." At first, teacher-written notes served as the inspiration for this writing assignment. Later, eclectic student-written novellas, poems, song lyrics, mnemonic devices, and field trip recollections made their way into "Plant Notes" and stole…