This theme issue of "InSEA News" is about several international and local curriculum concerns, building on topics of the previous two issues. The authors, from Taiwan, Brazil, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Portugal, address international cooperation projects or describe local curriculum projects. Some articles are accompanied by…

This paper suggests that developmental reading teachers could benefit from a little laughter or a little humor in their courses, since they teach subject matter no one wants to hear or read about to students who resent being placed in the classes, and they must do this well enough so that their students will pass a test they have already failed…

Describes an instructional project, How to Tell a Foreigner to Berlin the Way,'' designed to give 8th graders practical experience in using English; format based on the text London--People ans Pictures,'' Cornelsen-Velhagen & Klasing, Berlin. (RS)

Presented is an experiment investigating children's awareness of regularities in physical phenomena and their capacity for expressing these regularities. Hypothesized and confirmed is that children can use statements with the form and purpose of a physical law. Cartoons related to Archimedes' principle (and connected gravitation and fluid…

Describes the use of the "cultoon," an informative cartoon depicting some aspect of a culture, to develop cultural understanding. (AM)

Asserts that, during the 20th century, animation has moved from being a perceptual curiosity to an important art form. Describes teaching methods and activities used in a one-day animation workshop for elementary students. Outlines a similar workshop for teachers. (CFR)

Presents a page from a booklet developed as part of a curriculum development project. Discusses some ideas for analysis of graphics arts. Examines maps, cartoons, illustrations, and photography. Warns against accepting that which is represented as the whole truth. Describes the imagery and cultural influences to be analyzed in maps and cartoons in…

Four short articles are combined: "Adding Discourse-Level Practice to Sentence-Level Exercises" (Eric S. Nelson); "Presenting Picture Books in the ESL Classroom" (Lijun Shen); "Role Playing in a Large Class" (Ellen Rosen); and "Calvin and Hobbes and Other Icons of Americana" (Daniel J. Conrad). (Contains seven references.) (LB)

Focuses on helping students develop historical skills in a U.S. history survey course using active learning strategies that incorporate small group work with primary sources. Describes four activities used to teach women's history: (1) visiting a museum exhibit; (2) attending a convention; (3) deciphering census data; and (4) examining political…

Provides analyses of four political cartoons in order to suggest approaches to Gilded Age politics that reveal key issues, such as gender, religion, and ethnicity, as well as the struggles over material resources in a stratified economy. Maintains that political cartoons assist students in understanding the ideology of a past era. (CMK)

Narratives produced by 69 healthy Italian adults were analyzed for age-related changes of microlinguistic, macrolinguistic and informative aspects. The participants were divided into five age groups (20-24, 25-39, 40-59, 60-74, 75-84). One single-picture stimulus and two cartoon sequences were used to elicit three stories per subject. Age-related…

This article reports the results of an experiment investigating the role of comic strips on ESL learners' reading comprehension. The students' proficiency levels were estimated, and students were organized into a low intermediate-level proficiency group (low-level students) and a high intermediate-level proficiency group (high-level students).…

The purpose of this study was to explore whether or not adolescents who are deemed underachievers and who struggle to read school-assigned textbooks will engage with popular culture texts of their own choosing (e.g., magazines, comics, TV, video games, music CDs, graffiti, e-mail, and other Internet-mediated texts). The 60 student participants,…

As a part of the teacher licensure program at the graduate level at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), the M.Ed. Licensure candidate is required to complete an action research project during a 3-semester-hour course that coincides with the 9-semester-hour student teaching experience. This course, Education 5900 Culminating…