Examines materials in the ERIC system offering teaching ideas and activities designed to promote critical and creative thinking and reading. Discusses the role of teacher questioning techniques and writing to structure thoughts. (HTH)

Explores children's interaction during talking, telling, and storymaking stages as they prepare a narrative. Discusses a method of stimulating children to create stories by encouraging them to talk about a book that has been read aloud to them. (HTH)

Discusses how teachers can make schools and classrooms literate environments. Presents two sets of correspondence between a teacher and her eighth grade students to show how they learned to approach reading and writing as "insiders." (HTH)

Describes a survey of seventh grade students' reading attitudes. Presents interviews with three of the surveyed students in which they each describe a book they have read and their response to its special meaning. (HTH)

Discusses the experiences of students as they try to turn pictures in their head into poetry. Describes how the poetry of popular music can provide stimulus for student poetry. (HTH)

Discusses the theoretical considerations of readers' response to literature. Explores procedures for monitoring and evaluating children's responses to literature. (HTH)

Demonstrates the interrelationship of the language arts--talking, listening, reading, and writing--as children explore and respond to the meaning in books. Notes that observing and listening in classrooms is a powerful tool for teachers seeking to assess children's learning. Shows how talking about books contributes to children's learning. (HTH)

Examines the distinct and sequential aspects of revision in the writing of first graders, as determined through a teacher's classroom research. Lists factors to consider when adjusting teaching styles to children's early writing processes. (HTH)

British drama instructor discusses how drama provides a sense of immediacy to subjects or stories and to the discovery process of learning. She also discusses how the dialectic aspects of drama aids in children's language development. (HTH)

Presents three basic tenets of the language across the curriculum philosophy: that language develops primarily through its purposeful use, that learning often involves and occurs through talking and writing, and that language use contributes to cognitive development. Discusses important practical implications these principles have for effective…

Discusses two approaches to teaching poetry writing to children: a method approach that molds children's creativity into acceptable forms, and an experimental approach that allows children to try out personal feelings and different forms, which is more conducive to their perceptions, creativity, and developing sense of self. (HTH)

Critiques what learning appears to mean in the typical American school setting and suggests a more appropriate construct of learning. Explains how this construct will enable a clearer vision of how writing fits as a means of enhancing learning. (HTH)

Describes an informal classroom study in which students tape recorded their thoughts as they read, wrote, and "conferenced" with classmates, and how they discovered the organizational benefits of using the recorder. Also describes the writing conferences and workshops that took place in the classroom. (HTH)

Discusses the role of language in drama in education. Examines the levels at which drama can enhance learning and understanding of language: social, symbolic, and reflective. (HTH)

Demonstrates through the writing of one second-grade student how some of life's crises can be successfully worked out through the writing process. (HTH)