Explains why the National Council of Teachers of English's Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magazines serves to improve high school literary magazines and reward the hard work of teachers and students. Uses the judging criteria of the contest to explain why the best magazines won recognition. (TB)

Sketches the way one English teacher used silent film to engender creative writing in a school for American Indian students. Advocates the use of humor in cross-cultural educational settings. (HB)

Presents an interview with Australian novelist and short story writer Peter Carey. Discusses why he left Australia, teaching in the United States, the writing processes behind his various publications, and translations of his work into other languages. (RS)

Describes how a teacher of adult literacy uses group poetry writing with her students to enhance language and critical skills. (SR)

Introduces novelist and art history professor Donald Harington. Rather than a detailed examination of his novels, this interview concentrates on broader questions about Harington's life; his inspirations; his region--the Ozarks of Arkansas--which he sees as an outpost of the Appalachians; and its influence on his art in general and his fictional…

To celebrate the "Decade of the Indigenous Peoples," this issue of a nonprofit children's magazine includes art and writings by Native American youth who share their ways of looking at and living life. Emphasizes the distinct customs, traditions, languages, and folklore of the different Native Nations and Tribes. (LZ)

Describes a parenting group for recovering addicts in which poetry, journal keeping, and creative writing are instrumental in the group process. Shows how they are used to set a therapeutic environment and establish a working alliance within the group, to reinforce concepts learned about the parent-child relationship, and to enhance communication…

Describes a classroom collaborative activity in which students are asked to write one-act plays based on three characters, two of whom know each other, and a third who affects the other two. Presents details of carrying out the assignment, and evaluates student response. (HB)

Offers 2 favorite writing activities for the computer lab: (1) students write about 100 words of the beginning and end of a favorite fiction book, while another student fills in the middle; and (2) students choose from 1 of 3 plot twists, write at least 5 sentences, and then write 3 more plot twists for the next student. (SR)

Presents suggestions for teaching students about poetry by using pets. The article recommends discussing poems about pets, writing with rhyme to describe pets, writing free-verse sketches about pets, collaboratively describing pets, and studying line breaks by writing one-line descriptions of imaginary pets. A reproducible teacher page offers two…

Creative writing classes provide an opportunity to develop confidence in presenting one's own work and critiquing others. Adults can explore interests while experimenting with self-expression and taking personal risks. (SK)

Discusses providing developmental learners with the opportunity to hear and respond to vignettes (short, descriptive literary sketches such as those in "The House on Mango Street"). Notes that the activity allowed students to experiment with another writing style and to use figurative language in a creative way. (RS)

Examples and ideas are given for stimulating creative writing in gifted children, using children's literature as a model, a stimulus, a motivational device, and a source of factual information. (DB)

Advocates that English teachers implement writing group activities as a means of maintaining a writerly lifestyle. Describes how five teachers from various kinds of schools formed a writing group and carried out its activities. Provides sample exercises and actual written responses of group members. (HB)

Provides a method for helping young poets shape their poems by arranging lines and inventing poetic patterns. Shows how using odd geometrical shapes can be used to help students determine the arrangement of words in poems and to encourage a vital interaction between the visual form and the words inside it. (HB)