Describes how the author teaches her eighth-grade students to revise their writing, providing "working revision days" in class, offering direction and structure, and thereby helping students learn how much impact going back to a piece of writing and making sweeping changes can have on the end result. (SR)

Examines the creation of process drama and writing experiences in a second/third-grade classroom. Describes how the classroom teacher used process drama (involving students in imaginary, unscripted, and spontaneous scenes) as a context for learning. Notes how process drama provided a context for content area instruction along with writing…

Focuses on a telegram sent from Hanoi, Vietnam, by Ho Chi Minh through the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) station in Kunming, China, to President Truman in which Ho asked for support of Vietnam's independence from France. Provides background information, a reproduction of the telegram, and ideas for teaching activities. (CMK)

Describes an interdisciplinary course on multicultural autobiographies that integrated psychology and literature, requiring students to examine primary texts using analytical tools from both disciplines. Addresses the outcomes and writing assignments, psychological and literary perspectives on autobiographical texts, the students' responses, and…

Discusses how a writing/design (service learning) assignment in a technical writing class offered an opportunity to investigate differences and similarities in evaluation criteria between the classroom (instructors) and the workplace (clients outside academe). Finds considerable overlap between what instructors and clients emphasized, and large…

This chapter argues that the use of debates in a core world history course can foster both authentic learning in the discipline and progress toward intellectual and ethical maturity.

It is natural to study astronomy outdoors, but it is not quite as natural to study astronomy during the daytime. This lesson uses the Earth's closest star as a subject of study within the schoolyard. The importance of the rising sun is combined with hands-on inquiry in which students explore the properties of shadows. Students (a) complete a…

A research is conducted which lays emphasis on how teachers can use bilingual student's writing as a springboard for deeper exploration into societal inequities in particular by paying attention to both the ideas and the voices revealed in their written words. The goal is to create an empowering learning environment in which students are able to…

One under-researched writing practice of today's millennial youth is online journaling. Despite the plethora of online journals on the Internet and their ubiquitous use by adolescents, little research has been conducted on online journaling as a literacy practice. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to explore how and why adolescents choose…

Since the early 1970s, many educators have touted writing as a means of enhancing learning. Several reasons have been suggested for this purported enhancement: that writing is a form of learning, that writing approximates human speech, that writing supports learning strategies. Alternatively, some researchers have cautioned that the educative…

Engaging students in a course in the Sociology of Religion can be a challenge, particularly when working with student populations in a homogeneous region of the country who have limited experience with religious diversity. We approached the course from a sociological/anthropological perspective, requiring each student to complete an in-depth…

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to identify the short- and long-term impact of business communication education on students' skill developments and performance outcomes. Nearly 400 students at an AACSC International-accredited business college participated in the study during their sophomore and senior years. The findings indicate that…

The Youth Empowerment Strategies (YES!) project is an afterschool empowerment program and research project for underserved early adolescents. Central to YES! is an empowerment intervention that provides early adolescents with opportunities for civic engagement with other youth around issues of shared concern in their schools and neighborhoods.…

The question, "What were the causes of World War I?," has become one of the classic historical debates of which there seem to be endless permutations. In the past 90 years historians, journalists, and politicians have offered many more or less rational explanations for the war. Although at least some of the usual "causes"…

View Park Preparatory High School, a charter school serving low-income urban students in Los Angeles, makes critical thinking the center of its literacy curriculum. The school's literacy program has a single, measurable goal: By graduation, every student will be able to write a 500-word sustained argument free of mechanical error, reflecting his…