Describes the University of California (Irvine) one-year humanities core course as hermeneutically and contextually oriented. Explains course development, structure, and organization and provides the reading list. Students assignments include essays and a dialectical notebook. Provides a three-day fall seminar for the teaching staff. Finds course…

Provides a structure for inquiry into human nature and ways to perceive and control behavior. Promotes understanding of political systems, explaining they are based on beliefs about human nature. Outlines activities in which students write position papers and debate the issues. Includes questions for classroom discussions and handouts. (NL)

Reports on a collaboration between an economist and a writing instructor in using a writing-to-learn approach in a higher education history of economic thought course. Describes the course content, provides examples of writing assignments, and student evaluation sheets. (CFR)

Describes a writing assignment where students summarize and critique an empirical research article cited in their textbook. Students relate the article to course materials and compare it with the textbook's presentation of the research. Participants praise the assignment's efficacy in teaching about psychology research and encouraging critical…

Describes a high school history class project designed to simultaneously teach students about Napoleon and introduce them to the practice of historical inquiry. Students viewed four data sets reflecting various aspects of Napoleon's life (e.g. military victories, domestic policy). Worksheets and writing assignments reiterated the importance of…

This article explores the writing opportunities provided to Spanish-speaking and mandarin speaking English Language Learners at the fourth and fifth-grade level across the various classroom settings in which they participated daily: an all-English speaking classroom, an English-as-a-second language (ESL) classroom, and a native-language classroom.…

The article examines a set of active learning activities that use a simulation format in conjunction with writing assignments. Students act as interviewers and interviewees to acquire an understanding of human resource management. Objectives include developing student understanding of process (be it hiring or application) and the tools of the…

First-year undergraduate science students experienced a writing program as an important part of their assessment in a biology subject. The writing program was designed to help them develop both their scientific understanding as well as their written scientific expression. Open-ended questionnaires investigating the quality of the experience of…

As part of a larger project, a ninth-grade class participated in a year-long exchange of writing with students in an inner-city London classroom. The larger project involved 10 San Francisco Bay Area sixth- through ninth-grade classes exchanging writing with nine inner-city London classes and a Swedish class. Students and teachers in each of the…

At the same time that educators and researchers are identifying ways in which major reform and restructuring is needed in schools, research on student learning in science (and other subjects) from constructivist and conceptual-change perspectives is suggesting the potential for significant improvements in students' understanding of science and…

The program and abstracts of the presentations of the 1991 meeting of the Society for College Science Teachers are the topics of this report. Society officers are listed, a history of the society is provided, and membership information is given. The presentations reflect different topics in the teaching of college science. The abstracts of…

A practicum addressed the problems of low reading levels, deficient writing skills, and poor attitudes toward reading. The objectives were to increase reading levels, improve writing skills, and improve attitudes toward reading and in this process to improve critical thinking skills. The target group was a sixth-grade language arts class of 23…

Given the increasingly multi-ethnic school population and the lack of democratic political traditions in many students' cultural backgrounds, new ways to educate for citizenship are essential. The paper recommends developing multidisciplinary approaches to teaching civic identity and civic writing. It describes how a New Jersey school district…

Designed to encourage self-expression in motivated students--all those who enjoy the adventure and challenge of learning--as well as in gifted and talented children in the upper elementary and junior high school grades, the 16 student writing projects described in this book lend themselves to a variety of applications, such as basic skill…

Combining the expansion of cultural literacy with the development of process-based writing, this book addresses each stage of the writing process, with emphasis on the recursive and overlapping nature of these stages. Numerous related model activities at the end of each chapter show how to develop the writing process, while expanding the writer's…