Making School Count reports on four years of classroom research in which alternative teaching strategies, designed to motivate under-achieving inner-city, African-American middle school students were used and evaluated. The book offers insights into the discrepancy between students' academic dreams (their high performance aspirations) and the realities of their classroom performance. Issues include: *the authors' convictions that the disproportionate under-achievement of African-American students is the result of inappropriate teaching strategies *the prevalent use of a Eurocentric curriculum *results of the authors' research *a guide for teachers wishing to carry out their own research *a study of the collaboration between a university and a schools in an attempt to bring about change from the ground up.

I Can Fly highlights the critical importance of narrative structural analysis in teaching reading comprehension, while providing a system for constructing comprehension questions that are grounded conceptually in the structure of the stories that the students read, from both a practical, and theoretical, orientation. The author presents the idea that folk tales and ethnic literature provide excellent material for the teaching of reading, particularly to multicultural or minority populations, by increasing the cultural congruence and motivation for multicultural students through their inclusion of language, illustrations, situations, and perspectives in which they see themselves reflected. These conclusions arise from a two year study in a middle school classroom in California with low income, 'at risk' students, most of them African American, but including Latinos and Pacific Islanders. (view table of contents)

Product Description: This book presents current knowledge about teaching culturally diverse populations, traditionally underserved in the nation's public schools. It approaches the challenge of improving public school education for these students in a variety of ways including relating of cultural and experiential knowledge to classroom instruction, examining the behaviors of teachers who are effective with culturally diverse populations, analyzing effective school models, reviewing models of effective instruction, and exploring ethnic identity as a variable in the formula for school success...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)