This book on effective curriculum for gifted students begins with an introduction that discusses gifted education's use of the special education model and implications of current educational reform. Part 1, "General Issues in the Design and Development of Appropriate Curricula for the Gifted," then explores scope and sequence in curricula for the gifted, correspondence between gifted learner characteristics and curricula, philosophy and goals for a gifted program, gifted learner outcomes, teaching-learning activities and resources, instructional strategies and management techniques, assessing and evaluating curricula, and implementing a curriculum for gifted learners. Part 2, "Specific Considerations in Planning Curricula for Special Populations of Gifted Learners," notes such special populations as disadvantaged gifted, underachievers, gifted girls, and gifted students with disabilities. This part then examines methods of identifying and nurturing disadvantaged gifted students and learning-disabled gifted students, and offers an individualized plan for a learning-disabled gifted female. Part 2 also contains four chapters written by other authors: "A Perspective on Curriculum Development for Gifted Learners" (Gail McEachron-Hirsch); "Curricula for Exceptional Children: A Special Education Perspective" (Virginia Laycock); "Gifted Children with Specific Learning Disabilities" (Lori Korinek); and "Bridging Family and School: A School Psychologist Perspective" (Agnes Donovan). The appendix contains sample curriculum units, as follows: tessellations unit (fifth grade), marvelous machines (fifth grade), the unexpected (eighth grade), exponential and logarithmic functions (high school), a scientist's history of the world (fourth to sixth grades), and investigating weather folklore (fourth grade). (JDD)