in recent times has it been written for youn

At the same time, the boys began to know their own way around books and to find their voic- es in their own experiences. T

The boys' responses were about more than just the relationship between the literary events and their own liv

93). The connections the boys made to contemporary realistic fiction about social issues and the ways they transgressed bound- aries (hooks, 1994) of childhood as they initiated or enacted social action became synonymous with empowerment and liberation in their own

The extra-textual application helped Colin to understand the characterization in the sto- ry. The father in the story played a teasing word game with his daughter. Colin first thought the story was strange, but after he made the connec- tion to a life experience, he responded with a broad- er view of the text, stating, "I see, he is like my Dad, tryin' to be funny and the joke is on him 'cuz we ain't laughing

Literature has the potential to make a differ- ence in the lives of African American males; that is, reading, writing, and discussing literature can help them to make sense of and negotiate their life experienc

The period of childhood is never valuated as such : one has to move on to adult life.

By the use of fables the child is instructed in an adult standpoint from the beginning.

he children were selected from one New York City school.

he outstanding conclusion to be drawn from the experiment is that the study of the fable caused no definite improvement in moral judgment

what inspires kids to write is their teacher's dedication and attitude to ward the process" (p. 2)

ven though he still focused on using repetition and frequent mention of various holidays, he had started to think of him self as a writer. He had also begun to think beyond himself and try out new ideas in his poem

e and internalize Koch's (1998) statement that "Poets are inspired by the work of other poets"

tudents took this even further, discussing Williams's use of short lines, stanzas, and simple but vivid language.

headed back to my classroom, confident that I could teach kids to write poetry because I could actually write it myself.

at happens all too often when teachers choose to only read poems with students is that the students become confused by the complexity of the poetry, which often makes them reluctant to try writing their own poems.

On the basis of these findings, we encourage teacher educators to consider modeling read-alouds for their preservice student teachers and requiring those students to practice read-alouds as part of their teacher preparation progra

One additional characteristic, asking chil dren to sit in the front of the room during a read aloud, was done in over half of the classrooms. While this may become an important characteris tic of an effective interactive read-aloud, many teachers continue to allow students to remain at their desks while the teacher reads.

One card said Yes, another No, another Grandmother, and anoth er Nicky. As the teacher read the book aloud to the class she asked questions and encouraged all of the students to hold up one of the cards for the answer

"He knows all the names and the invented words. He pronounces them all correctly and doesn't stumble over them.

She also stopped periodically while reading and asked students to write specific words in their vocabulary journals. Following the read aloud, students defined the new words in their vo cabulary journals, created sentences with these words, and then sorted them by spelling patterns and conceptual similarities (

eachers were consistently observed selecting high-quality children's literature for their read alouds. Often these were award-winning books such as Newbery or Caldecott winners or books that had received notice in some wa

nd 103 of them were female.

Further confirmation for read-alouds as a mo tivating factor in reading was found by Gambrell, Palmer, and Codling (1993) in their work with third and fourth graders. Specifically, they found that choice was a motivating factor for reading and that the choices children made were often related to the teacher read-alou

By talking back and taking over, children are demonstrating this passion

In all of the examples cited, the classroom teachers, while never losing control of the situa tion, varied their reactions to children's respons es in a way that encouraged active participation. For example, while encouraging the children to raise their hands so that they did not all speak at once, one teacher also acknowledged and ac cepted called responses if they did not override another child. The children therefore became confident in their responses and actively en gaged with stories. There are sever

These types of response may call into question our traditional distinctions between on-task and off-task behav iors.

hese five types of response not only show children actively engaging with stories, they show children making stories their own

hese responses by Julie, Trent, and Sean show that the children thought there was room in the stories for them?their personalities, their choices, and their capabilities. It was one way of personalizing the stories, of drawing the sto ries to themselves; more important, it allowed them to control and manage plots and characters. They thought of themselves as authors, with ideas as valid as those of the publis

hen teachers read stories to children, they translate, as it were, the visual illustrations and the written language to expressive spoken lan guage. For example, teachers may read dialogue by changing the tone and volume of their voices to interpret those of the characters in the story. In other words, storybook read-alouds are interpre tive performances by the reader of the story. By acting out the story, children extend this perfor mance to include themselves?their actions, ges tures, and expressive language

growth over time in several areas: The February and April samples show increasing development of topic as Mary learned to add detail by antici pating questions classmates might ask. Invented spellings developed from mainly phonetic-based in August to transitional representations in April. The February and April samples show growing understanding of the use of capital letters to start sentences, lowercase letters in the rest of the words, and periods to end sentenc

you can see, I use the conference to give direct instruction about one spe cific item in the child's writing.

this is occurring, I make brief notes about anything I hear that I want to cover in the conference with the child that will follow

In my experience, one effective way to provide meaningful rehearsal before writing is to have a 10-minute illustra tion time before the real writing period begins. I

"Good point, but I see it differently because..." or "I am not sure what you mean when you say.... Could you say more?"). Although she was leading the discus sion, like my coaching, we hoped that this would pro vide positive models the students could emulate

or example, for a read aloud she read Like Sisters on the Homefront (Williams-Garcia, 1999), a book about teenage preg nancy. Although only sixth graders, she felt that the subject matter resonated with these students because this issue was one that plagued these students' com munity. U

or example, one stu dent responded, "I give Taylor a hand because she was bringing up good questions for us to answer." Another student responded, "I give Nel a hand be cause she said something interesting and did a good job telling predictions." Although the students needed more work on giving compliments, this activity began pushing them in the right direction for establishing and maintaining a community of learners

"It helps us get to know each other and see what we have in common." Jennifer and I hoped these seedlings we planted would grow into better group relationships

cience was just before her class, and she claimed that when the students en tered her room they seemed like they were always in a hurry and were very competitive. She attributed some of this to the science teacher, who used a lot of team games and stressed quickness in completion of assign ments. She stated that sometimes it was hard to get kids to se

here was a pervasive feeling of hostility between the students, and many of their everyday interactions seemed to be punctuated by verbal assaults such as "stupid" and "ugly," as if these words were to be rou tinely attached to the end of a sentence. T

Successful literature circles de pend on a classroom climate in which everyone feels valued"

ased on the Vygotskian notion that learning develops through social interaction (Vygotsky, 1934/1978) and the re search that collaboration and group work can lead to positive consequences (Johnson & Johnson, 1989), many teachers felt that using literature circles could help increase positive social learning opportunities in the classroom.

We need to take an honest position with regard to the literacy development of African American adolescent males

Appropriate cultural tools for interrogating gender include transmedia narratives and platforms, which can enable learners to develop an attunement to, appropriate, and reinscribe messages about gender in a personally and culturally meaningful way.

.

Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly.

Ask and answer questions to help determine or clarify the meaning of words and phrases in a text.