Describes the State-Question-Read-Conclude (SQRC), a student-centered reading/thinking strategy based on the Directed Reading Activity format, and SQ3R, all proven to be effective strategies for developing the reading and thinking skills of elementary and secondary school students. (RS)

Discusses extending the "Witch's Hat" technique with the Problem-Solution pattern and the dialog projection technique to help learners comprehend and produce basic narrative discourse in English by developing awareness of the rhetorical structure of stories. Discusses benefits of the combined strategy. (RS)

Describes classroom action research with the verbal-visual word association strategy. Explores the strategy with a group of junior high and high school students on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeastern Montana. Shares interpretative impressions and results of a vocabulary quiz given to the high school group. (RS)

Presents a 16-item annotated bibliography of adolescent novels published between 1990 and 1997 that feature characters with disabilities. Notes that each entry includes a description, the ages and disabilities of the main characters, recommendations for using the novel, and a rating. Includes selection criteria. (RS)

Discusses the "Teletubbies" television show's appeal to older children and to adults. Suggests that the debate that has been generated around it raise significant questions about the relations between childhood and adulthood and about the nature of literacy in media-saturated societies. (RS)

Suggests that autobiography is a fertile context for students to develop a facility for reading and writing and for defining and constructing themselves within an academic setting. Discusses using autobiography in an introduction to academic discourse course for developmental college students. (RS)

Offers a small compendium of examples of the diversity and richness of adolescent life as portrayed through personal Web pages. (RS)

Examines four "puzzling" results of the National Adult Literacy Survey: (1) the ability to use printed information effectively is unevenly distributed in the United States; (2) adults exhibited a large gap between performance and perception of literacy skills; (3) increased literacy did not always correspond with significant earnings increases;…

Provides a brief introduction to ways functional grammatical concepts can be used to understand the distinctive literacy demands of school science and history texts. Distinguishes this grammar from that of everyday language; examines the characteristic grammatical and discourse forms of content area learning; and discusses developing functional…

Describes two multimedia and CD-ROM projects: The Shoah Visual History project; and the University of California Los Angeles' interactive educational CD-ROM, "Executive Order 9066: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II." Argues that these powerful teaching tools help students better understand historical events, involve…

Describes how undergraduate secondary English education majors in a course on teaching writing defined and created the multigenre research paper, researching a topic and then writing a number of pieces that integrated and interpreted their findings. Notes students' enthusiasm, creativity and ownership; shows two student papers; and describes using…

Documents a literacy problem in an electronics factory in which workers failed to read or follow written instructions. Suggests that to be truly literate, employees need access to a wider range of information about companies and their work and that work should be organized to allow, even require, workers to take responsibility for reading and…

Relates the experiences of numerous secondary school teachers (in a variety of disciplines) who found successful ways to use the Internet in their classrooms. Offers their comments and recommendations. Discusses controlling student Internet access, and includes the Acceptable Use Policy form from the author's school district. Offers suggestions…

Takes a fanciful journey into the digital library imagined by Jorge Luis Borges, and uses it as a metaphor to examine what sort of library the World Wide Web is. Examines how digital libraries are growing and what they mean for literacy education. Includes a description of a particular Web page, and a glossary. (SR)

Describes how authentic assessment was used in a literacy education class (on integrating instruction and assessment in the reading classroom) to enhance the learning process. Shows how evaluation of students' work was improved through the feedback generated by the class. Offers advice for those striving to make connections between instructional…