The Entertainment Studies Interest Group of the proceedings contains the following 9 papers: "Beyond Modern Racism: Backlash and Brutality on 'The Shield'" (John D. Richardson); "Big Brother and the T-Group: How We Might Learn from Reality Television" (Rod Allen and Nod Miller); "Hegemony and Counterhegemony in Bravo's…

Analyzing particular encounters, this report identifies proven strategies to better control hostile conversations. Chapter 1, "Defusing the Angry Screamer," indicates the importance of controlling both voice and word choice, depersonalizing tirades, ascertaining triggering events, and being attuned to signs of escalation. Chapter 2,…

With sections on using the Web to plan and structure courses, conduct research, and publish student work, as well as a reference essay that reviews Web sites for educators and students, this book reveals the rich variety of ways in which this technology can be used by English and language arts teachers at all levels. The 20 essays in the book…

Drawing from 10 widely used freshman writing textbooks, this article demonstrates the problem of implicitness existing in regard to 2 notions central to writing instruction in the United States: "voice" and "audience." The article enumerates ways in which textbook presentations of these concepts disadvantage second-language…

Addresses the implementation of a constructivist approach to using multimedia technology in two advanced language art classrooms in a public middle school seventh grade class. Discuses the development of management, technical, research, and problem solving skills, and placing final projects on the Web to give students a sense of audience.…

Shares the attempts of one teacher to structure a program that allows students to learn and grow as a community of readers and writers through the use of a response-centered curriculum. (MG)

Examines the contribution of British television viewing to viewers' politics. Finds an association between heavy television viewing and political centrism. Finds also that television constructs a mainstream around its fictional output while preserving pluralism through current affairs, and that political leaning does not occur through repetition…

Examines how television viewing may shape social perceptions of Blacks. Focuses on the amount of viewing and beliefs about racial integration, hypothesizing that heavy television viewers would report higher estimations of the prevalence of racial integration than would light viewers. (MS)

Investigates the ability of children at two grades and reading ability levels to write functionally appropriate expository texts. Finds that (1) virtually all the children understand the function and audience for exposition; and (2) reading level is significantly more related than grade level to sophisticated use of cohesion, organization, and a…

Shares the success stories of the students, teacher, and director of an award-winning high school newspaper in Boston. (MG)

Describes a letter-writing campaign in which students in an English class wrote to their state representatives opposing a bill intended to restrict the viewing of certain films in the classroom. Demonstrates the students' attention to the effects of their writing on their audience, and on their own image as writers. (PRA)

Offers suggestions to help educators prepare manuscripts for submission, presenting ideas from a 1996-1997 survey of editors. The ideas include the following: know your audience; know your journal; know the journal's writing style; write concisely; edit, revise, and proofread; note tables; and check references. Three sidebars present tips for…

Explores the effect of age of the intended addressee on the written performance of Japanese university students. Twenty-six female students each wrote letters to three people they knew from a recent study abroad program: one significantly older than themselves, one significantly younger, and one approximately the same age. Analysis of the…

Presents media literacy research of eighth-grade students to determine the level of recognizing and understanding visual and nonvisual codes that make up motion-picture stories. Study focused on rhetoric of the film medium: trust, confidence and belief in films among children is very high; if this trust coincides with ignorance of media codes,…

Discusses online course development based on the design of courses at Arizona State University that were delivered via the World Wide Web and used computer conferencing software. Discusses the audience, learner characteristics, content, goals, instructional strategies, feedback, interaction, and evaluation. Contains 13 references (LRW)