Uses the story "The Life of a Drop of Water" to initiate a creative writing activity and teach about the water cycle. Attempts to stimulate students' understanding of a scientific concept by using their imaginations. (YDS)

Katherine Pierpont tells of the creation and development of the popular children's book, "Olivia Forms a Band," by author/illustrator Ian Falconer. In this story, Olivia, a pig, and her mother, father , and brothers are off to have a picnic and see fireworks. Olivia insists that if there are fireworks, there must be a band, even if she must…

This presentation explores how contemplative practices, especially those anchored in an active listening to silence, are integrated into creative writing courses. It pays particular attention to a course taught at the United States Military Academy at West Point and to a course on the poetry of war and peace taught at the University of…

The results of an action research project that was designed to explore what lessons could be learned from using an innovative strategy to help high school students write more authentically are described. A number of factors that led to the students' success are cited and examples of the poems are included that resulted from this innovative…

While a wealth of knowledge about the teaching of poetry exists, many teachers are still fearful about teaching it. Others have tried unsuccessfully to write poetry with students and have turned to merely reading poetry on occasion as a means to teach the genre. This article seeks to debunk the mystery surrounding the teaching of poetry through…

Computer technology has become an indispensable tool in writing. Those of us who have spent any time in schools can attest to the prevalence of word processing, concept mapping, Web editing, and electronic presentation software, all deployed, to a large extent, in the collective effort to enhance student writing. The degree to which such tools…

This article discusses creative writing which promotes literacy and content learning in a social studies classroom. In this article, the author states, that educators must encourage students' creative energies and enable them to engage with content in new and stimulating ways. One way to help students really learn about the concepts inherent in…

Support from school partners is absolutely necessary. Every teaching artist knows this, and every arts education organization strives to cultivate this support. In this article, the authors create some powerful strategies for achieving this support, such as agreeing at the outset about the focus of the residency. Lessons that develop meaningful…

"Dimension" is the annual volume containing the selected, refereed, edited Proceedings of each year's conference. The Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT), held its annual conference, April 3-5, 2008, at the Springmaid Beach Resort and Conference Center, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in collaboration with the South…

Language arts are at the forefront of education these days. Instructors at all levels are being encouraged to teach writing in their courses, even if those courses cover subjects other than English. Literature instructors have long used fiction to teach composition. But because the novel reflects a broad range of human experiences and historical…

"World of Warcraft" is an online computer game with over nine million players, many of them technically-minded young males. A proportion of these young males engage in spontaneous creative writing about their game adventures. They enjoy highly formulaic genres, such as the epic poem, with its complex technical requirements. This has…

Rural school students need ample opportunities to engage in creative writing, particularly the writing of poetry. A student teacher and a cooperating teacher in a rural fifth-grade classroom (with 12 students) guided the students in the writing of limericks by starting out with couplets, then triplets, and then limericks. The teacher had clearly…

For one instructor, her work in autobiography began with an interest in understanding how her past has influenced her present work of teaching. Autobiography is an interpretive act and both a reunion and a release from the past. While there is commitment to truth in writing an autobiographical text, the autobiographer necessarily engages in the…

This directory serves as a guidebook for selecting the most appropriate destination for a writer or artist who needs time and seclusion to pursue or complete his or her work. The directory contains nearly 200 entries, alphabetically arranged and cross referenced in easy-to-read listings--listings include colonies for playwrights, screenwriters,…

Girls and boys write differently. Girls like to write about subjects close to home: self, friends, parents, teachers. Boys write about activities in the community beyond the home: technology, sports, policemen, firemen, war. Boys not only write about vigorous engagement but demonstrate it in the classroom where they tend to dominate while girls…