Introducing body movement/relaxation awareness in an urban elementary school : a case study in school improvement.

This case study investigated the planning, implementation, and assessment of a staff development project designed to reduce stress and provide a support base for improved learning by introducing Movement/Relaxation skills to an urban elementary school. Focus of the research was directed towards meeting the needs of differently-abled children in the low income African American community. It examined possible body/mind strategies for making the curriculum more accessible to the active learning style of African American children. The program also took into consideration concerns of the adult learners among the professionals. It acknowledged school improvement as an ongoing process that must appeal to the efficacy of teachers who may commit to change when they feel what they are doing will make a difference. During workshops and coaching sessions, an action team of volunteer educators explored aspects of nonverbal communication in space, ways of bringing Movement/Relaxation into the curriculum and techniques for developing body depth, or inner space, and relaxation. The action team generated a group dynamic that enabled the participants to: (1) share experiences; (2) clarify understandings; (3) encourage each other in the classroom practice of body/mind activities; (4) gain an awareness of nonverbal communication and how to improve teacher/student relationships; (5) realize the value of relaxation as basic to concentration, attention and learning; (6) excite the interest of other faculty members; and (7) foster a more nurturing school climate. Endorsement of the study by central administration strengthened the commitment of school personnel who contributed towards its implementation. Cooperation by the principal, math and reading coordinators, as well as the responsibility demonstrated by school aides were essential to the progress of this research. The time spent working together served to bond the participants and those who lent supportive assistance to their efforts

Ways of seeing ringed birds - An Eco-Critical Discourse Analysis

This thesis examines how birds being ringed as a conservation effort, are represented in five selected articles from the Norwegian bird magazine Our Bird Fauna [Vår Fuglefauna]. The representations found in the magazine have been evaluated by conducting an Eco-Critical Discourse Analysis, with a phenomenologically inspired eco-philosophy as the normative framework. Rather than being represented as serving a conservational purpose, the ringed birds were represented as inferior, objectified artefacts - captured for the sake of being consumed as entertainment. The conservation effort of ringing birds and the hobby of bird watching were metaphorically constructed as one and the same. The bodies of the ringed birds were represented as satiations of children's and adult’s curiosity, as spectacles for public displays, as tools for constructing one’s bird watcher-identity and as objects of demystification. The thesis draws the conclusion that the representations of ringed birds in the articles analysed facilitate a destructive discourse. This discourse is not considerate of the birds as subjective beings, nor is it sensitive to the power relation embedded in human-animal interactio

A Comparison Of An Extended Individualized Reading Instructional Program With The Regular Reading Instructional Program And Its Effects Upon Reading Skills Of Selected Black Junior High School Students Who Areunderachieving In Reading.

It was the purpose of this study to investigate the premise that if a reading program is based on individual interest, those individuals participating in the program will be motivated to read and will make greater gains in vocabulary skills, comprehension skills, and total reading skills than those taught by a non-individualized approach. The research undertaken fer this study utilized thirty-nine, Black, seventh grade students who were underachieving in reading. These subjects were randomly assigned to two experimental groups and two control groups. The analysis of covariance procedures were used to measure gains in vocabulary achievement, comprehension achievement, and total reading achievement. The results revealed no difference in achievement gains between the experimental and. the control groups at the .10 level of significance. The conclusions drawn from the study revealed that although the individualized reading approach did not show significantly greater gains in reading scares, it may be a means of enhancing interest in reading. The findings in this study strongly suggest the need to undertake research to: (1) examine the impact high interest reading material may have in affecting reading skills improvement: (2) ascertain the variant reading interests which may exist among students of different ethnic origins

Gwendolyn Brooks: Poetry and the Heroic Voice

Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the major American poets of this century and the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry (1950). Yet far less critical attention has focused on her work than on that of her peers. In this comprehensive biocritical study, Melhem—herself a poet and critic—traces the development of Brooks\u27s poetry over four decades, from such early works as A Street in Bronzeville, Annie Allen, and The Bean Eaters, to the more recent In the Mecca, Riot, and To Disembark. In addition to analyzing the poetic devices used, Melhem examines the biographical, historical, and literary contexts of Brooks\u27s poetry: her upbringing and education, her political involvement in the struggle for civil rights, her efforts on behalf of young black poets, her role as a teacher, and her influence on black letters. Among the many sources examined are such revealing documents as Brooks\u27s correspondence with her editor of twenty years and with other writers and critics. From Melhem\u27s illuminating study emerges a picture of the poet as prophet. Brooks\u27s work, she shows, is consciously charged with the quest for emancipation and leadership, for black unity and pride. At the same time, Brooks is seen as one of the preeminent American poets of this century, influencing both African American letters and American literature generally. This important book is an indispensable guide to the work of a consummate poet. D. H. Melhem, author of three books of poetry, is a member of the faculty at the New School for Social Research and is adjunct professor of The Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities. Melhem is delightfully militant about becoming the critic needed for a poet who \u27is our multiethnic, multiracial American artistic heritage.\u27 We require such critics as we need such poets; Melhem\u27s work points Americanist literary scholarship in a direction it must go. -- American Literature The first comprehensive study of the poet. -- Brooklyn Daily Eagle Melhem, in authenticating Brooks as a \u27major\u27 poet, achieves indeed a resource needed now. -- Choice Thanks for pulling me into History. . . . Bravo! -- Gwendolyn Brooks A highly needed examination of themes and techniques of all of Brook\u27s works. . . . A valuable contribution to the Brooks scholarship. -- Journal of Modern Literature Will help bring Brooks the wide attention and appreciation that she has earned. Highly recommended. -- Library Journal Timely, enjoyable, and useful. . . . Finely arranged and executed. -- St. Louis Post-Dispatchhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_north_america/1005/thumbnail.jp

Internationalisation of English language education in Taiwan: cooperative learning through drama in the elementary school

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how and whether cooperative learning through drama can be introduced to children's English language classrooms in Taiwan. Humanistic and educational internationalisation based on philosophy of John Dewey is to be applied as an alternative way for solving the problem caused by competitive globalisation and competitive learning. Chapter 1 sets the scene by indicating the essential features of competitive learning in Taiwan, and its negative impacts are presented. Chapter 2 analyses the background of the cause of competitive learning, and the essential educational mode focused on economic and competitive concerns are analysed. Chapter 3 examines competitive globalisation and its negative impacts on Taiwan's English education for children. Internationalisation with cooperative principles based on Dewey's philosophy is proposed as a doable way to solve the problems. Chapter 4 thus analyses cooperation and drama in educational theory and practice. Cooperative learning through drama is introduced in practice to bring about a change in children’s learning. Chapter 5 discusses how cooperative learning lessons are designed, implemented and reflected in the research project in the fieldwork. Action research is the method used in the fieldwork. Chapter 6 presents the children's experience and understanding of cooperative learning. The children's interview data is analysed and presented in a detailed way by applying grounded theory, and children's theory of how they conceptualise cooperative learning through drama is developed. Chapter 7 draws conclusion by discussing what could be done in relation to policy and classroom levels in children's English language learning. Suggestions and the limitations of a case study are also discussed. Reflections are presented as the final remarks of the theme of this research

Genre games: Edward Gorey's play with generic form

This thesis examines Edward Gorey's play with form and content across five literary genres, how that play results in the style that has come to be known as the "Goreyesque" and how the Goreyesque has influenced later artists and writers. Gorey consistently places style ahead of thematic and moral considerations, removing the purpose of each genre to reveal what remains in its absence. In doing so, Gorey maps out the boundaries of each form, providing genre- and period-specific details that act as signposts to how his audience should approach each narrative. With these markers in place, Gorey's readers are thus made aware of which genre expectations rule each piece. These expectations, however, are undermined as Gorey removes the audience-understood literary endgame, so that the work appears in all respects to be an accurate representation of the chosen genre, yet is missing the central heart. Gorey's melodramas present scenarios in which deep familial loss and suffering are at the forefront of each narrative, yet as a result of the distance that Gorey places between the text and his readers, these works ultimately lack sentimentality. His Dickensian narratives, while populated with virtuous orphans and embittered, isolated men, lack moral pronouncements and just rewards, resulting in exceptionally bleak, nihilistic endings that provide little or no social commentary. His children's literature, although full of mnemonic systems, rejects all pedagogical functions in favour of inviting in adult audiences to luxuriate in sound and linguistic form. His mystery and detective fiction, while containing secrets, crimes and criminals, ignores any pretence of decoding the central mysteries. His Gothic horror revels in supernatural excesses, yet engenders no fear. By tracing Gorey's play with genre, we can identify the aesthetic parameters of the Goreyesque, and examine how they manifest in the works of other artists and writers, notably Tim Burton, Neil Gaiman and Roman Dirge. In manipulating genre expectations, Gorey does more than simply leave readers with the shell of narrative purpose. Instead, he draws attention to the absence and pushes beyond expectation to reinvention. He normalizes the strange and fantastic by removing the very things that make the ordinary extraordinary. He infuses his works with a distance that shifts their purpose from generating high emotion and strong reactions to encouraging minute attention to narrative detail. Gorey's fantasies therefore represent odd, underwhelming moments that are otherwise ignored in the search for the uncommon and unique. By underplaying the significance of the events in his stories, Gorey represents and refreshes our concepts of the fantastic, and highlights the strangeness in the overlooked

Six friendships : the social experiences of preschool-aged children with and without disabilities

This study looks at naturally existing friendships among preschool-aged children with and without disabilities in inclusive settings. The study is a naturalistic study. Datawere collected through participant observations and interviews. Field notes were taken during observations and recorded in a field journal. Interviews were audio taped and transcribed. Analysis of the field notes and interview transcripts was inductive. Analysisinvolved organizing and categorizing information into units of meaning and searching for themes. Analysis uncovered descriptions, meanings, and revealed various perspectives regarding the friendships studied including those of the children, parents, and teachers.The study describes six friendships among children with and without disabilities that developed without an intervention plan. The inclusive environments provided the opportunity for the children to meet one another and interaction among the children to occur. The teachers, parents, researcher, and the children themselves recognized the relationships as friendships. The friendships are described as typical and portray characteristics that are common among friendships during the preschool age period. The Friendships were dynamic and changed throughout the course of the study. Of the friendships studied, four remained intact throughout the course of the study and two of the friendships dissolved. In the relationships that dissolved, variance in developmental levels affected the dissolution of the relationships. Several factors influenced the formation of the friendships including similarity in play styles, the opportunity to engage in similar activities, similar knowledge and interests, proximity, and parental factor