Based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" and other war literature, this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand that works of art about war can call up strong emotions in readers; and that the writing process can be applied to writing poems. The main activity of the lesson involves…

This "weekend news" writing activity gives students the opportunity to recall personal events and write about them. The writing is done in a nonthreatening environment, which helps students develop writing fluency and apply what they already know about spelling and other language conventions. Students create a set of criteria with which to…

This book offers strategies to help teachers and curriculum coordinators strengthen student interest through meaningful and purposeful learning. The 15 chapters are: (1) "Introduction: Planning a Connected Curriculum"; (2) "Children, School, and Community"; (3) "On Connections"; (4) "Making Connections: An Interdisciplinary Approach"; (5) "Making…

Noting that the realities of globalization are changing what as well as how and when students learn, this publication focuses on the bridge to higher academic achievement in writing through the use of technology. The information in the booklet is a foundation for improving teaching and learning of writing in the context of the Digital Age.…

The North Carolina Standard Course of Study aims to guarantee that all students have equal access to education. This revised North Carolina Standard Course of Study for English Language Arts is intended as a flexible guide to instruction, emphasizing what students should know and be able to do as they progress through various levels of…

Offering developmental students comprehensive, step-by-step instruction for writing expressive, informative, and persuasive essays, this book showcases the writing process and presents a wide variety of engaging assignments. It strengthens students' reading, thinking, and writing skills; validates their diverse and unique cultural experiences; and…

Continuing the conversation began in the book "Invitations," this book further explores the full universe of an effective language arts and literacy program across the curriculum. Filled with an array of field-tested teaching ideas, detailed strategies, reviews of theory, teacher-crafted lessons, and lists of annotated resources, the book presents…

A substantial body of research elaborates and documents how practicing teachers support the writing development of young children (Atwell, 1987; Avery, 1993; Calkins, 1986, 1994; Graves, 1981; Lensmire, 1994; Routman, 2000). Yet, there is limited research about how preservice teachers learn about children's writing (Dahl and Farnan, 1998) or about…

This book provides comprehensive resources for the critical discussion of major issues in learning to read Chinese from a child acquisition perspective. It is divided into 4 parts and 11 chapters. Part 1, "Theoretical Perspectives on Learning to Read" includes "Current Issues in Learning To Read Chinese" (Ovid J.L. Tzeng),…

This booklet offers practical, up-to-date information on early childhood literacy for those who interact with young children. Topics addressed by the booklet include: (1) supportive learning environments; (2) learning to talk; (3) optimizing learning; (4) supporting the literacy development of young children; and (5) fundamental principles for…

Currently, university composition programs are experimenting with the delivery of online writing courses, without the component of face-to-face interaction. To assess the efficacy of this delivery medium, a study compared two groups of undergraduate students in a course on argumentative writing taught by the same instructor: one group taking the…

This study described how a fifth grade reading and writing class utilized short stories to comprehend how authors used eight different writing techniques in their own writing. The researcher found that when the fifth grade students comprehended how to use a writing technique they were able to apply it to their own personal, expressive writing. The…

Mandates about the kind and amount of literacy instruction in classrooms and levels of reading required for successful promotion from grade to grade are currently dominating state and federal legislation. This paper gathers scholarship from three disparate sources to produce the first integrated review of policy-related research on literacy…

This booklet is the third in a series designed to assist parents who are home-schooling their adolescent children and focuses on providing instruction and experiences in reading, writing, and mathematics. The articles in this booklet are: (1) "Developing a Writer's Toolkit," discussing ways to incorporate techniques used by successful writers to…

Third grade children from urban elementary schools in a southern city wrote, rewrote, and edited stories using strategies developed by their teachers during an interactive staff development program. They were participants in the National Head Start/Public School Transition Demonstration Project, a longitudinal study of the transition experience of…