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In a series of 12 project-based learning lessons, a group of seven fifth-grade students who live 200 miles from the coast explored their personal connections to the ocean. After completing a unit on the role of water in Earth's surface processes, the students investigated ocean acidification and how this pervasive ocean problem impacts their local community. The use of project- and place-based learning allows students to experience the impact of our actions on the environment; discover a link between their communities and the ocean; and form a meaningful emotional relationship with the ocean that empowers them to take action on sustainability.

The purpose of this "teaching tips" article is to describe practical classroom instruction that helps elementary students write expository responses to narrative texts. It focuses on the importance of scaffolded, interactive discussions comprised of a combination of teacher think alouds and similar student responses before, during, and after writing. Embedded within such instruction is the use of inquiry listening as a form of formative assessment. The article opens by highlighting a problem posed by a local literacy assessment and standardized test preparation measure for the focal children, namely, inconsistencies between the text structure analyzed (narrative) and the required product (expository textual analysis). Next, it outlines specific instruction involving interactive discussions that lead to comprehension of text structure(s) and clear conceptualizations of expected formats for written products. These include a) frontloading with photographs, and b) thinking aloud about writing samples.

The purpose of this article is to describe the assessment-driven instruction that facilitated third graders' increased understanding of informational texts, as revealed in their written responses to texts during one school year. The key instructional practices included making transparent for students what it means to synthesize, engaging students in interactive read-alouds, assessing students' written responses regularly, and using what was learned from the assessments to develop think-aloud minilessons. The article includes analysis of students' written responses throughout the school year. The authors reveal how the majority of the students grew in their ability to synthesize the ideas relevant to the overall meaning of the text and to develop their thinking using details from the text. (Contains 4 figures.)