Case study teaching provides a bridge between the world of theory and the world of practice. In addition, case teaching enhances students' analytical and problem-solving skills and gives students the opportunity to engage in shared problem solving. Undisguised cases have certain advantages as teaching tools. First, undisguised cases give case…

Although they are a useful resource, textbooks provide students with only a terse account of facts and concepts. In contrast, historical literature allows students to experience a humanistic and detailed view of historical figures and important events. Historical fiction and nonfiction give children the opportunity to explore alternative…

Teacher educators routinely encounter middle grades teachers who like to include more environmental literacy in their curricula. These educators of children in grades four through nine believe that it might be considered "fluff," take away from the class time needed to meet varying state mandates or standards, be difficult to implement, or all of…

This book, intended for teachers of grades 4-8, is organized into 9 units with distinct genres or subgenres of literature. Each of the units begins with an overview for the teacher summarizing the essential characteristics of the genre, followed by pre-reading activities to help students recall and organize their previous reading, followed by a…

A study of two contemporary American novels, told in first-person narration, explored the distribution and function of relative clauses in literary narrative. For comparative purposes, data from oral conversation, 2 written expository works, 6 other novels, and 20 short oral narratives were also considered. Three types of relative clause are…

A bibliotherapy intervention was used to foster acceptance of children with disabilities by their nondisabled peers. The study involved 247 regular students in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade non-integrated classrooms at one elementary school. Treatment students read either fiction or nonfiction literature, followed by discussion of the material.…

Tools for teaching students how to question intelligently are badly needed. Science fiction provides many such tools in a variety of subjects by stimulating the imagination and thus motivating students to learn. Such vehicles are available at all grade levels. From Mark Twain and H.G. Wells to Anne McCaffrey and Isaac Asimov, novels and short…

This master's project contains two essays and a long poem, examining the possibilities of creative writing as a tool of inquiry in mathematics, history, science, film, art, and architecture. The project's first essay, "The Poet in the Warehouse," introduces a brief history of imaginative writing and an argument for its inclusion in…

An analysis of oral and written discourse focuses on the hypothesis that marked structures serve to code discourse boundaries and signal the advent of new discourse units. The hypothesis is examined against three independent sets of data: (1) discourse from a larger study, in which subjects provided oral or written narrative descriptions, in…

This textbook contains five units of literature by the Plains Native Americans. The first unit presents examples of oral tradition, in which mythology, legends, stories, songs, and personal accounts pass on values, beliefs, and experiences. The second unit contains nonfiction: an account of a young girl's first days at an Indian boarding school,…

Created to promote a mutual understanding and acceptance among various faiths and cultures throughout the world, this book is an annotated bibliography of religious children's books. It has almost 700 critical evaluations of books with distinct religious themes for children from preschool to middle school. Chapters are: (1) "Religion";…

This is a fictional dialogue intended to honor Jim Kingman and David Leary, both professors of history who retired after long careers at Pasadena City College in California (PCC). The dialogue hypothesizes the observations of both men as they look on the honorary gold plates of previous retirees that decorate the wall of a PCC public dining hall.…

This annotated bibliography of materials focuses on horses, racing, ranching, and riding. Two articles are presented in full. They are: "Diary of a Blind Horseman: Confidence Springs from a Horse Named Sun" (Richard Vice and Steve Stone) and "Young Rider: Her Horses Show the Way" (Helen Mason). Each article tells the true story…

The study is a methodological inquiry into the interpretation of qualitative data. It explores a grounded theory approach to the synthesis of data, and examines, in particular, construction of categories. It focuses on ways of organizing data and attaching meaning, as research problems embedded in cultural context are explored. A qualitative…

This theme issue of the serial "Educational Foundations" contains five articles devoted to the topic of "Alternative Conceptualizations" of the foundations of education. In "The Concept of Place in the New Sociology of Education," Paul Theobald examines the notion of place in educational theory and practice. Janice…