The autobiography "I, Rigoberta Menchu" is a complicated text--the conditions of its production, the complexity of its subject matter, and the wide range of possible responses among North American readers create challenges for composition students and instructors. A week of taped interviews with Rigoberta Menchu, a Guatemalan Indian…

A study investigated the impact of a school-based family literacy program located in an urban, working-class Ontario, Canada neighborhood on parents enrolled with their toddlers. Subjects, 15 white female parents between the ages of 17.6 and 33 years who had not completed secondary education, were interviewed, wrote journals, and participated in…

This manual is an organized collection of journal activities and action charts designed to help individuals and groups to set goals and achieve them. It is based upon the following premises: (1) what you think has a profound impact upon your experience; (2) successful living is vitally connected to effective learning; and (3) success is related to…

This guide for volunteer teachers of English as a Second Language to Spanish speakers in a home-based program outlines a suggested format for class time and activities. The guide describes how teachers can organize their class periods to promote learner-centeredness and participation in the English learning process. The structure, designed to help…

This newsletter covers issues and activities related to writing across the curriculum, literacy, and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) education. Articles include "Language Testing and Minorities,""Writing and Talking in Early Childhood Education,""Announcing a Centre for Literacy,""The Literacy of…

Approaching literary study from two distinct yet interlocking perspectives (by looking at the major genres of literature and by examining the forms in which students of literature are expected to write about the literature they read), this book has two main sections. Following the Prelude, which treats the relationships between reading and writing…

A model for foreign language teacher education is suggested. The model is based on the premise that multiple activities in a teaching curriculum provide opportunities for foreign language student teachers to explore and change their teaching behaviors. The following six activities are discussed: (1) practice teaching, (2) observing teaching, (3)…

The proposed study was designed to improve the writing skills of students in the targeted first and fifth grade classrooms in one elementary school located in a Midwestern suburb. The study was designed as an action research project and was conducted by four researchers during the months of September through December 2002 with 118 participants (40…

This study examined the match between teacher comment intentions and preservice teacher interpretations of and reactions to the comments. Participants were three students enrolled in a course entitled "Approaches to Teaching." The students were required to keep a reflective dialogue journal. The teacher provided written comments about…

This publication provides guidelines and worksheets for orienting This publication provides guidelines and worksheets for orienting principal, the new teacher, and the assigned, more experienced "buddy teacher" are outlined, and a schedule of key due dates for their responsibilities is provided. Worksheets are provided for new teachers to…

This paper examines graduate counseling students' affective and cognitive development related to cultural competence. Counseling Process and Cross Cultural Counseling, two required courses in a master's degree program at a regional university in the Midwest, were designed to provide a knowledge-base about cultural differences and to project how…

For several years, one educator has taught Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations" to eighth and ninth graders. She recently discovered a woman writer of the 18th century whose novel could be taught using the same format used to teach Dickens's novel. Fanny Burney's "Evelina" is an exceptional book, effective not only for teaching the epistolary…

This study explored the use of triad journaling as a collaborative tool for enhancing teaching and learning in a professional development school. The triad journals expand the notion of traditional journaling between university supervisor and student teacher to include the cooperating teacher in a weekly dialogue about teaching and learning. Based…

Describes journal writing with first-graders to promote math relevancy. Children brainstormed situations requiring mathematics, wrote about them in journals, and shared journal entries with classmates. After children solved a word problem that the teacher created from journal entries, they wrote their own word problems, worked in pairs to check…

Offers alternatives to conventional modes of instruction by making practical applications of collaborative learning theory. Describes strategies to de-center the classroom by journaling, workshopping, and linking reading with writing. Suggests that with this approach students exhibit less writing apprehension, increased fluency, as well as changed…