Compares Richard Adams's "Watership Down" to the "The Odyssey," and offers a selection of classroom activities for students that use Adams's novel to study classic literature. (NKA)

Sensory metaphors--based on visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, or gustatory sensation--are pervasive in everyday communication. Teachers can improve communication with students by learning to recognize sensory metaphors, matching their own sensory language with that of their students, maximizing sensory channels, and teaching sensation and…

The writing and art program described in this lesson plan employs scientific observation, descriptive writing, sketching, reading, investigation, and poetry writing to train middle school students to use their senses and focus their attention. During the four 45-minute lessons, students will: make careful observations of natural objects; write…

This is the fifth paper published by The Centre for Literacy in its Working Papers on Literacy series, which presents new perspectives on literacy-related topics relevant to researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers. This paper was adapted from a longer manuscript submitted by Kieran Egan in 1999 for the UNESCO Award for Research in Adult…

Intended for teachers of secondary level learning disabled students, the paper offers guidelines for five areas of language instruction--vocabulary, listening comprehension, conversational skills, abstract language usage, and ability to adjust language to different social situations. (SW)

The 1980s reform movement has been top-down, with national commissions, state laws, bully-pulpit speakers, and buzzwords like "accountability" and "excellence." A new reform agenda will probably focus on human and social needs, rather than economic and military-industrial preoccupations. President George Bush represents the…

Tested children's ability to produce appropriate similes, evaluate a given simile's appropriateness, and select an appropriate simile. Minimum competence appeared around the age of three years for the multiple choice task, four years for the production task, and five to seven years for the evaluation task. (BC)

There have been persistent criticisms of Rorty's "liberal ironist" as the postmodern picture of the educated in the liberal utopia. While the modernist (Enlightenment) liberal Thomas McCarthy, who believes in universal rationality as the basis of public morality, criticizes Rorty's view of the liberal ironist for fostering the poverty of public…

Purpose: In the current knowledge-based economic climate, the success of an organisation is inextricably linked to the individual. This article seeks to consider the key relationships between the individual, lifelong learning, the workplace and employability in the context of the knowledge society. The aim is to extend understanding of these…

The authors of this article report on a preliminary study of 18, 4- and 5-year-old children, followed by a longitudinal study of 44 children, who were tested in the first, second, and third grades. The children's ability to detect the ambiguity of lexically ambiguous sentences (e. g., "The children saw the bat lying by the fence") and…

Shel Silverstein's children's book "The Giving Tree" imparts a useful metaphor for thinking about the role of teachers--women teachers in particular. The book's namesake is the epitome of altruism, providing branches, fruit, and even her trunk so that her beloved boy might have what he desires. And so it goes for women; endless giving,…

This paper considers efforts made in evaluating a distance-learning course, which was intended to prepare students for working on an undergraduate dissertation in business and economic areas. Course delivery had stressed a tutorial approach with an emphasis on individual mentor-student exchanges. Given the nature of the learning approach and the…

Researchers use images of outsiders and insiders to distinguish basic writers from students more proficient with the demands of academic discourse and academic culture. For example, David Bartholomae examines how outsiders rely on unelaborated commonplaces to define their interpretations while insiders elaborate and work against their…

This qualitative study explored the meanings of chat room conversations through observations of teenagers using the Internet. Adolescent girls were a focus because of their shaky sense of self. Participants in ten chat rooms included 534 individuals. Six themes, emerging from analyzing 2526 utterances [descriptive statements], included (a)…

Currently, it is strongly suggested that our thought processes are largely metaphorical in nature. Indeed, the metaphors we use not only represent the way we perceive the world and reality but also shape our professional ideas, attitudes, and practices. This study employs metaphor as a means of research to provide insights into the images…