Notes that teachers may feel intimidated by the sheer number of recommended young adult literature titles. Presents annotations of eight young adult works that have appeared on at least three other lists of recommended books for 1995. (RS)

Discusses the vocabulary of English punctuation terms, largely unchanged since the Norman conquest in 1066. Discusses the meaning of the period, colon, comma, question mark, exclamation point, slash, parenthesis, brackets, asterisk, hyphen, and ampersand. (RS)

Presents a short story about two young girls' experience at a Catholic summer camp. (TB)

Presents a short story about a young girl living with her mother and her new step father, a rude, domineering construction worker whom she does not care for. (TB)

Presents a short story about an adolescent boy whose troubled family life has led to a poor attitude in school and repeated discipline problems. Shows how the boy finds solace through his drawings, particularly those of his sister who ran away. (TB)

Presents a creative writing teacher's reminiscence on one of the last days of school as students gather in a stadium to socialize and write a few words in their yearbooks which they have just received. Discusses particular students, their pain, their fearlessness, and the hazards and disappointments that are an inevitable part of life. (TB)

Presents, in a farewell column, some reflections on educational issues and movements concerning rainbow students, including self-esteem, story sharing, nonverbal differences, racial identification, and testing. (TB)

Lists 24 writing lesson plans or teaching approaches designed to keep students engaged toward the end of the school year, including list making, ABC stories, fractured fairy tales, cut word stories, "bummer behavior" letter writing, and using children's books as a stimulus. (TB)

Shows how a writing exercise requiring students to write to themselves five years into the future has a dramatic effect on them and helps them, perhaps for the first time, to think about their futures. (TB)

Recounts a teacher's experience at the week-long IFTE (International Federation of Teachers of English) conference at New York University, which attempted to help educators respond to conservative criticism of educational pedagogical approaches and trends. Describes a small group experience. (TB)

Identifies the source of new teacher difficulties in maintaining order and discipline and inspiring students to cooperate and learn. Describes a seminar that helps preservice teachers determine how they want to "be" in the classroom and how they will strategically deal with unruly students. (TB)

Explores the origins of the word "plagiarism" and concepts of authorship. Examines a number of current issues concerning plagiarism, for instance, how the term complicates teacher-student relationships and peer cooperation in writing. (TB)

Describes a method of teaching poetry in which students are handed random volumes of poetry and instructed to browse through them, starting with the first poem and not stopping until they find one that engages them. Reports that on average students browse through 22 poems before finding one they like. Gives excerpts from five student responses to…

Reviews 39 books for young adults, chosen because they provide a variety of perspectives and thus are useful in helping readers rethink their views of the world by allowing them to "walk a mile in another's moccasins." Maintains that together the books provide a collage reflecting despair and hardship because of discrimination but also hope of a…

Defines the goals of social constructivism as providing a democratic and critical learning experience for students through the building of knowledge about self, school, everyday experience, and society. Reviews specific implications and practical applications of the philosophy. (TB)