This digest discusses the professional development of foreign language teachers at a time when the foreign language teaching profession is facing a number of new challenges, such as a rapidly changing student clientele, the development of national standards for foreign language education, and advances in technology. The first section of the digest…

This brief descriptive guide is a pilot social studies- language arts course at Haviland High School, Haviland, Kansas. The two-hour course is team taught and seeks to combine the junior year of U.S. history and the junior year of English in an interdisciplinary class. The project began in 1990 with the school's designation as a pilot school for…

Developing financial fitness requires developing a knowledge base and then applying it. This teacher guide and student workouts package contains 15 lessons from students at grades 3-5, divided into 4 theme areas of earning and income, saving, spending and borrowing, and managing money. The development of knowledge for use in the everyday life of…

Social studies promotes civic competence through the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities. This Nebraska framework states that the primary purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse and democratic society in an interdependent…

This book was written from the Deweyan premise that children will become lifelong, self-directed learners by engaging in inquiry processes with interdisciplinary content and that, from these explorations, upper elementary and middle school students can inductively formulate concepts and generalizations that help to explain the world and what it…

This practicum was designed to increase the literacy growth of kindergarten students through the use of developmentally appropriate emergent literacy practices. The kindergarten language arts curriculum did not meet the diverse literacy needs of the kindergarten students. The goal of the practicum was to meet the diverse literacy needs of the…

Arguing that picture books have much to offer students in the upper grades (including middle school and even high school students), this book discusses using picture books to stimulate students' thinking in a variety of topic areas. Chapter 1, Using Picture Books in the Middle School To Stimulate Thinking, introduces the topic of using picture…

The thematic integrated teaching method for second-language learning weaves together the four skills by using a topic encountered in everyday living to explore and adjust to a new environment and language. The theme of food is used to illustrate curriculum structure, vocabulary, and activities. (MSE)

Discusses the many reasons that science-related social issues such as environmental education should be an important part of every science curriculum, citing John Dewey as the first to express the breadth of possibilities. Themes include excessive individualism, democracy and the common good, and the role of education in promoting science as an…

Argues that use of theme-based curricula for preschool children is developmentally appropriate, provides an integrated approach to teaching and learning, enhances learning, and yields high levels of achievement. Provides supporting data from brain research and learning psychology. Includes a sample thematic unit and guidance for creating thematic…

Provides two fully developed library media activities that are designed for use with specific curriculum units in reading, language arts, and social studies. Library media skills, curriculum objectives, grade levels, resources, instructional roles, activities and procedures, evaluation, and follow-up are described for each activity. (LRW)

Maintains that the multiage primary school approach is rapidly gaining advocates across the nation. Asserts that the thematic approach used in the National Council for the Social Studies national standards provides a structure for this curriculum schema. Discusses teachers' concerns about curriculum change and strengths of the nongraded primary…

Presents thematic webbing in which students choose a theme and create major branches by brainstorming and the teacher compiles activities that connect the major branches while covering mathematics topics. Discusses implementation and assessment within the thematic webbing approach. Uses bears as an example. (MKR)

Describes a genre-based approach to content writing instruction used in a fifth-grade social studies class in which the majority of the students came from English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) backgrounds. A unit on explorers and exploration used narrative, descriptive, persuasive, and expository writing assignments to improve the students'…

Examines effective lesson-planning under the integrated curriculum approach. Proposes a seven-step plan of writing, discussing, and revising proposed plans. Suggests that using the writing process in lesson planning as a team creates a multidisciplinary, integrated curriculum with organized, power-packed lessons and activities, offering a…