Reports use of social networking to recruit 64 Mexican-American children for an assessment of diet and exercise habits. Describes friendship, social, consanguineal, and coparenthood networks. Compares results of direct contact versus network contact. Discusses implications for recruiting ethnic groups for research. (LFL)

Presents a combination review and teaching guide to HOMER, a computer program for writing instruction that analyzes text and has a feedback feature which encourages students to question its revision suggestions. (NKA)

Reviews a book entitled "Secret Writing: Keys to the Mysteries of Reading and Writing" and presents exercises from the book that are designed to improve students' reading and writing skills. (DF)

Describes teaching a unit on Appalachia in a six-week winter elective. Describes studying the people, coal mining, crafts, music, religion, and folklore of the region. (EL)

Describes the currently advocated "process approach to writing," its advantages over traditional instruction, and the potential of the computer to simplify the process. Three word processing software programs designed to teach writing to elementary school children and a package of programs to teach writing to adults are reviewed. (MBR)

Describes a collaborative project that grew out of the Montana State University nursing faculty's dissatisfaction with their students' writing and university writing center faculty's interest in integrating writing instruction into non-English classes. Discusses the Discovery Journal (an exercise in "freewriting"), case study…

Describes a laboratory experience for a general biology or physiology course designed to increase awareness and promote principles of exercise prescription. The fitness evaluation methods utilized, use of the microcomputer to manipulate data from diagnostic tests, development of individualized exercise prescriptions by each student, and…

Proposes use of criteria-based scales, which prescribe levels of writing performance for a particular mode of discourse, as a way to teach and test student writing skills. Pre- and posttesting, teaching for the test utilizing the criteria-based scale, and why this method is successful are also discussed. (MBR)

Describes how consistent focused and sequenced freewriting with sequenced procedures for moving from it to additional writing leads students to more effective writing. (CHR)

The author provides staff developers and educational leaders with tools needed to facilitate a workshop or study group, designed around his book. It gives chapter-by chapter activities focused on moral purpose and why it plays such a critical role in changing the context of school leadership. This guide explores in depth: (1) "Changing the…

This lesson plan asks students to use documents from "California As I Saw It: First Person Narratives, 1849-1900," in the American Memory Project to create a script depicting the motivations, expectations, fears, and realizations of immigrants who settled California between 1849 and 1900. According to the lesson plan, "California As…

Recent years have witnessed an increased emphasis on the professional development of undergraduate psychology students. One major thrust of this professional development has been on research that results in a convention presentation or journal publication. Research leading to journal publication is becoming a requirement for admission to many…

Cites survey and interview results indicating that college students do a large amount of self-sponsored writing, including letter and journal writing, to come to terms with others' ideas and their own feelings. Suggests that teachers need to make their students' own intentions the focus and starting point for for classroom writing. (MM)

Teachers can capitalize on children's interest in recent science fiction movies by using books based on the films in their classrooms. Books taken from "E. T.,""Star Wars,""The Empire Strikes Back," and "The Wrath of Khan" are summarized, and learning activities to be used in conjunction with the books are suggested. (PP)

Several simple performance tests are described for assessing an athlete's major energy-producing capabilities. The tests are suitable for mass screening because they are easy to administer, require no sophisticated equipment, and can be done quickly. Information for evaluating test results is included. (PP)