Provides critical commentary on Nicholas Eberstadt's assertion that low-weight births and infant mortality among blacks in Washington, DC, is mainly the result of high rates of illegitimacy and other parental behaviors. Nicholas Eberstadt's response is included. (GLR)

Describes theological views about written texts, related attitudes exhibited by current protestors, and problems such views and attitudes create for English language arts teachers. Suggests that such an awareness of the religious perspective might help to lead to more constructive outcomes to conflicts between teachers and individual students and…

Describes Patti Cleary, an eighth-grade teacher, and her students. Discusses their perceptions of young adult literature and the reading workshop. Lists and describes new young adult titles that may appeal to fans of romances, S. E. Hinton, short books, and sports novels. (TB)

Describes a teacher's unsuccessful attempt to introduce the poetry of Tu Fu, a wayward bureaucrat of the T'ang dynasty, to a class of part-time students. Uses his students' resistance to this poetry as an occasion to discuss the importance of personal responses to poetry, as opposed to "correct" academic responses. (TB)

Discusses portrayals of animals in children's realistic animal fiction over the course of the 20th century. Shows how the definition of animal hero generally changed from wild animals that were heroic for surviving against all odds to domesticated animals that were heroic for rescuing humans from wild beasts. Discusses animals as victims. (SR)

Provides a critical review of the present state of environmental education in the formal sector of education in Uganda. Recommends an improved approach to formal environmental education based on a multidisciplinary foundation that embraces the biophysical environment, people, culture, politics, and socioeconomic systems. (LZ)

Describes an experience during classroom discussion of Alice Walker's "Roselily" that led a teacher to revise her understanding of multiculturalism. Defines three problematic yet popular approaches to understanding the differences in culture in the United States and then presents a fourth approach that encourages students to see themselves and…

Finds the commentaries of U.S. critics on the works of Chinua Achebe and other African writers ethnocentric, misinformed, and devoid of cogent analysis. Advocates a microscopic sociocultural contextualization of the works, emphasizing the nuances, history, and specifications of the African milieu. Discusses Achebe's special place in reading lists…

Explores the authority of experience, the role it plays, and the limits it sets in teaching for diversity. Questions whether teachers can teach what they have never experienced. Discusses Nella Larsen's novel "Passing," with emphasis on the confusion of racial and sexual relations, as a difficult situation similar to the classroom. (HB)

Discusses the usefulness of literary theory to instruction. Identifies, from a brief classroom transcript, a student's "misreadings," explains how theory helped understand their nature, and how it suggested an instructional strategy. (SR)

Presents the results of a study which investigated the views of religion offered in 40 young adult books published between 1983 and 1987. The study focused on the role of, and attitudes toward, religion presented in the books. It was found that religion has a definite presence in these books. (42 references) (MAB)

Highlights Canadian writer George Bowering's view of reading as metaphor and process (shaping both his fiction and his developing sense of interpretation as a political act) by focusing on two of his books, "Burning Water" and "Caprice." (SR)

Critiques teleological narrative structures implicit in the work of some classical historians, adopting instead a multilayered historiographical method. Argues that a law instituted in 451/450 B.C.E. by Pericles opened up a possibility for resisting women's exclusion from the public sphere. Reads Gorgias' and Isocrates' speeches on Helen of Troy…

Burgess' novel, "A Clockwork Orange," is discussed as a perfect example of schema theory in operation. The book's overwhelming linguistic accomplishment is based on Nadsat, a language coined by Burgess and described as bits of rhyming slang, gypsy talk, with Slavic roots and propaganda components. (seven references) (LB)

Uses the communications theory of Habermas to analyze the structure of the debate about educational administration between Thomas Greenfield and Daniel Griffiths. Addresses the debate's paradigmatic nature; the ideal speech situation, the public sphere, and the forum of the debate; strategic speech actions; and validity claims. (DMM)