Described is a "joke center" where elementary school students not only learned about various kinds of humor and practiced language skills but had a terrific week of laughter as they shared favorite jokes and made up new ones. (Author/KC)

Measures of anxiety and achievement were obtained on a sample of undergraduate students. Highly anxious students had lower achievement on humorous tests. Students with low anxiety had higher achievement on humorous tests. Results indicate that humor is not a positive factor in reducing high anxiety associated with academic evaluations. (Author)

Suggests 12 activities to make humor an integral part of the reading/language arts curriculum. (MKM)

Recounts what happened when a night school teacher thought creativity meant Joyce, Porter, and Frost, while the students thought it meant cocktail napkins, cereal boxes, and sexy stories. (RL)

Describes poetry programs presented to children by a troupe of performers who incorporated music, humor, and audience response in their performances. Lists qualities of the shows that contributed to their success with children. (HOD)

Demonstrates how education can be studied through folk literature and humor, using Seba Smith's folk hero, Major Jack Downing. Illustrates a broadened conception of what constitutes education and contributes to education other than schooling. (Author/CK)

Results provide little support for viewing decentering ability as the major cognitive skill underlying developmental trends on tasks of cognitive perspective taking, peer description, humor understanding, and causal attribution. (Author/BH)

An investigation was made of the structure of riddles, riddle content, and the function of riddling among children ages 5 to 14. Interaction data and 1195 items were taped and hand-recorded during riddle sessions with 101 children from kindergarten, second, fourth, fifth, seventh, and eighth grades. (MS)

The author tells how he began storytelling to teen audiences, how fairy tales were originally geared toward adult audiences, and highlights some of his favorites. Violent, gory, and humorous stories appeal to teens but invoke discussion and promote reading. Provides a list of storytelling hints and finding, learning, and practicing the story. (LAM)

A study investigated the ability of 8 adolescents with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism to pick funny endings for cartoons and jokes. The adolescents with autism had significantly poorer comprehension of cartoons and jokes than age-matched controls. Both subjects and controls had more difficulty with the joke task. (Contains…

Humor can be a powerful, productive tool to help teachers succeed in the classroom. Humor cultivates spirit, alleviates stress, improves communication, and diffuses conflict. Reviews types of humor (satire, cheerfulness, eccentricity, and sarcasm), discusses humor's classroom uses and benefits, and shows how school leaders can introduce humor into…

Investigates teachers' use of humor in relationship to immediacy and affective learning outcomes. Reports that (1) amount and type of humor influenced learning; (2) students were particularly aware of tendentious humor; (3) an overdependence on tendentious humor diminished affect; (4) male and female students perceive humor differently; and (5)…

Reviews the literature concerning children's humor. Discusses major characteristics of early humor based on the child's level of developmental mastery, and proposes a conceptual model of humorous play. (RJC)

The article discusses the concept of inspiration as a component of creativity, including environmental influences, affective self-awareness, effective verbal communication to preserve inspired experiences, and the role of humor. The creative problem-solving process is also addressed, with attention to divergent thinking strategies and the practice…

Four French language classroom activities are suggested, including an exercise sensitizing students to the structure of poetry, a group of games centering on the Eiffel Tower, a series of activities exploring attitudes toward the Eiffel Tower, and a vocabulary and cultural awareness development exercise using the terminology of painting. (MSE)