This publication includes five papers that were presented at a language communications conference that emphasized integrating the language arts at elementary and secondary school levels. Walter Loban stresses the importance of classroom language activities that involve children in genuine purposes and that link language to thinking. Charles R. Cooper argues that, when teachers teach writing, they should spend most of their time conferring with individual students about their writing and that they should train students to talk to each other in helpful ways about their writing. Dorothy S. Strickland discusses the importance of oral language in children's schooling and stresses the need for a well-planned oral language curriculum. Alan C. Purves examines skills needed for producing and receiving language and proposes a set of goals for teaching students to achieve language mastery. Delores Minor points out the need for teachers to go beyond teaching the basics to include humanism in education. (GW)