The articles in this journal issue reflect the theme of "passages." Five articles contain teachers' reflections and descriptions of the following forms of passage: (1) passing from the classroom to motherhood and back again; (2) passing from academe to the world of work--the retraining of literature professors; (3) ways in which students gain perspectives of their own "passages" through experience-based motivation for writing; (4) ideas for helping students "pass" to more sophisticated listening skills; and (5) helping students in the passage to abstract levels of thinking. Other articles deal with skillful sentence combining, teaching popular literature, teaching rhetorical stance through music and parody, and public support for the teaching of writing. (RL)