Reflects on the journal "English Education" from the viewpoint of the editor during the early 1980s when English teacher education was undergoing a period of soul searching as it carved out a place for itself as an area of important research. (TB)

Explores how firmly established are primary school children's gender expectations and how a primary school environment reinforces or challenges those expectations. Shows how gender stereotyping influences children's interpretation of literature. Discusses implications for teaching. (TB)

Education researcher Gerald Bracey claims that the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) will result in privatization and educational vouchers because schools are expected to show regular gains in the proportion of students judged "proficient." (MLF)

Argues that the literal and cultural "text" of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) calls into question the entire project of teaching English at the secondary level in this country. Teases out the connection between the study of NAFTA and the study of text and what it might mean for the teaching of English in the next…

Concerns about noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) are illustrated in a case study of a 13-year-old girl with severe mental retardation who was demonstrating severe aggression. Her NCR treatment produced an extinction burst and incidental reinforcement. A brief omission contingency was added to the reinforcement schedule, which resulted in decreased…

Explains why the Clinton administration's answer to illiteracy, embodied in the "America Reads Challenge," in the United States is not a solution and only diverts accountability from the failure of the public-education system. It argues that phonics is the best way to teach reading and provides the principles of reading instruction. (GR)

A former graduate student of Gail Kelly reminisces about her insistence that her students ask the right questions after first examining their own assumptions. Kelly's work in developing countries examined the ways in which the school experiences of boys and girls differed and how the "hidden curriculum" of educational systems perpetuated…

Challenges Carol Gilligan's (1982) assertion that there are two fundamentally different and gender-related orientations to morality, namely a male justice orientation and a female care orientation. Argues that Gilligan's view that these orientations are logically and psychologically incompatible and that their developmental origins are in early…

Reviews 11 films on volcanic eruptions in the United States. Films are given a one- to five-star rating and the film's year, length, source and price are listed. Top films include "Inside Hawaiian Volcanoes" and "Kilauea: Close up of an Active Volcano." (AIM)

Discusses teaching students literary appreciation and how to teach the appreciation of other media. Suggests comparing a book and video version of the same story and includes a literary review unit guide for middle school or junior high school students, as well as a sample lesson on comparing stories in two mediums. (LRW)

Analyzes a transcribed speech in which an African American community member engaged a panel of school board officials on the topic of racial stereotypes in an elementary school science experiment. Concludes that the force of public discourse may reside less in a speaker's ability to persuade an audience than in an audience's willingness to recycle…

Critical analysis of vocabulary, imagery, and rhetoric in business texts shows that higher education is adopting a free-market discourse depicting the academy in terms of a knowledge industry or revenue generator in which intellectual resources are "leveraged" and knowledge is a "commodity." This discourse is characterized as management centered,…

An ongoing study aims to differentiate functional uses of self-criticism from destructive self-criticism. Self-criticisms and responses of 22 senior undergraduates were grouped into 8 categories covering a broad variety of self-criticisms. The final portion of the study will compare the content and form of self-criticisms of individuals with or…

Suggests the best method of teaching short fiction is maieutic. Argues that students need to strengthen their thinking ability and can most effectively do so by responding to exploratory questions that relate to analysis. Suggests that the questions must be thoughtful, specific rather than general, and phrased in a way to encourage response. (SG)

Discusses the connections between creative writing and literary criticism. Explains experience of combining a literature and creative writing class. Concludes the combination results in both groups gaining a greater understanding of each others' crafts. (PM)